Temp Job
by OughtaKnowBetter
Summary: Dozen mercenaries. Four FBI agents. Two brothers. One consulting job.
1. Chapter 1

Temp Job

By OughtaKnowBetter

Obligatory disclaimer: maybe some day…

* * *

"You're sure you don't know where you're going? You're just going to get into a black limousine, in the middle of the night, and take off? Just like that?"

"It's not really the middle of the night," Charlie demurred, folding the sports jacket in his hands and tucking it into the small valise. "Technically, eight o'clock is more like early evening."

"Whatever." His father waved that objection away. "The point is, you don't know where you're going, you don't know when you're going to be back—"

"I'll be back within two weeks," Charlie disagreed.

"_Some_ time within that two weeks."

"And you really don't know where you're going?" Don asked curiously. He regarded his brother with a mixture of brotherly affection and disbelief. Even after so many years, he found it difficult to think of Charlie as someone known upon the world stage, a shaker of the New Millennium. People he knew weren't supposed to be that powerful, and certainly not the kid brother that he'd walked home from school so that Ricky Taylor's homework didn't suddenly become perfect overnight.

Charlie selected a tie, and held it up. "Does this go?"

"You're a geek. People don't expect geeks to be able to find two matching socks, let alone sartorial elegance," Alan Eppes told him. "Answer your brother's question."

Charlie shrugged, and slipped the tie into the suitcase. "Not really. I mean, it's been the same lodge every other time people like this have called, but that doesn't mean that things can't change. We're not _supposed_ to know where we are. It's all part of the secrecy."

"But…?" Don encouraged.

A small smile. "Let's just say that I got curious. There are a number of limiting factors," Charlie said, the lecturing tone coming automatically into play. "Two hours by car means that it's not more than a hundred, maybe a hundred twenty, miles in any direction. Not quite 50 percent of that territory is the Pacific Ocean, which lets out that as a destination since we're surrounded by trees, trees, and more trees." Another small smile: "Don, I've tracked down the probable location of more than one suspect for you. You think this is any different? This isn't even a moving target." He ticked off the additional limiting factors on his fingers. "If this is the same place as it's been for several other temporary consulting projects like this, it will be at a high end lodge in the mountains, far away from anything and anyone else. There are only just so many lodges in the California mountain ranges within two hours of here that meet those qualifications. Six, to be exact: one in the Tehachapi Mountains, and two more up in the Paiutes. The other three are east of here, out toward Joshua Tree."

Don grunted, acknowledging his brother's nonchalant acceptance of the assignment.

Alan folded his arms and studied both of his sons with a crooked smile. "My son, working for the government, probably developing some new weapon to destroy the world as we know it. My other son, working for The Man, who would probably start hunting through my memorabilia and arrest me if he really knew what I'd been up to some fifty years ago. Where did I go wrong?"

Don grinned. "Statute of limitations, Dad. I can't arrest you. Unless you've been up to something recently I don't know about?"

"Donnie, I'm an old man. I can't move fast enough to commit a crime."

Don laughed. "Right, Dad. Remind me of that, next time we play tennis."

"I'm slow, Donnie, but not stupid. You have a big hole in your forehand." Alan turned back to his youngest. "So where is this place?"

"Dad—"

Charlie was saved by the ringing of the doorbell. Don straightened himself from where he was leaning against the dresser. "I'll get it."

"Tell 'em I'll be right down." Charlie hustled to grab the pair of pants and stuff it into the suitcase. "Just got a couple more items to pack, and I'm out of here."

Don trotted down the stairs, and opened the door for Charlie's driver. The man who had been sent, though not in uniform, shrieked _military_ to anyone with the habit of sizing people up. The mousy brown hair was growing out, but the ramrod stiff spine and the trim waist was a dead giveaway to Don. Maybe private security, someone who'd served his time and then gone on to a more lucrative job in private industry? Another option could be undercover security, funded by Uncle Sam. Well, it was _all_ funded by Uncle Sam, technically, since whatever project Charlie was being called to work on would end up being sold to the military or some other branch of the U.S. government. Private industry just meant that a little more of the money would get pushed into private sector in exchange for a little more efficiency in developing whatever it was that Charlie was supposed to develop.

Didn't matter. Most of Charlie's high end projects never crossed Don's desk, and he liked it just fine that way.

The man outside the door refused to frown, but the confusion was plain. "Dr. Eppes?"

"My brother," Don enlightened him. _Yeah, I don't look like him. You must have been given Charlie's picture. Good briefing. _"Come on in. He'll be down in a second."

"Thank you." The security guard briefly blocked the light from the street lamps as he entered, twisting his broad shoulders slightly in order to come inside.

_Damn, but they're growing 'em big these days_. "Do this often?" Don asked, more to have something to say than for any other reason.

"No, sir."

_Yup, ex-military_. Don glanced up in response to hearing his brother clamber down the stairs, his bag in his hand and Alan Eppes trailing behind.

_Well-trained, too_. The man stepped forward, reaching out his hand for the suitcase. "I'll take that, professor." _Target in site. Collateral obtained_. All that was left to do was to secure the 'package' in the limo outside—armored, maybe? It had a suspiciously _thick_ look to it—and head to where ever good little math professors were supposed to be in order to perform technological miracles.

Charlie was clearly used to this sort of treatment, Don decided. How often had his kid brother done this before Don had moved back home? Don would probably never know. It was for damn sure that his ego wouldn't let him ask.

Charlie handed over his bag. "Hang on a sec. I'll get my laptop, and I'll be ready."

"You won't need your computer, Dr. Eppes, nor your cell phone. Please leave them both at home. You'll be supplied with all the equipment that you'll need once you get to where you're going."

"Yes, I will need it," Charlie informed him. "My laptop contains other research. If a thought strikes me while I'm there, I'm certainly not going to wait two weeks before entering the data point into my programming."

"I'm afraid that you will have to, Dr. Eppes. My instructions are quite clear. Any recording devices, including computers, will be either left home, or will be wiped clean prior to leaving the facility."

"Wiped clean?" That was a new and frightening thought.

"Yes, sir. No exceptions."

Charlie considered. "Maybe I just won't go."

"You have that option, sir. I'm sure that they will seek out another mathematician to fill your place, sir. Professor Penfield, perhaps."

_Oh, yeah_. This guy was obviously well briefed. Don refused to let the smirk arrive at his lips.

Charlie scowled. "I suppose I could just jot things down on paper."

"Yes, sir."

_Don't laugh. Don't laugh_.

"All right." Charlie gave in. "You win. No laptop. But the stuff they give me better be good," he warned the security man, as if his new escort had control over the situation.

"I'm certain it will be, sir." The security man briefly blocked the light once again, stepping back out onto the stoop and automatically scanning the neighborhood for anyone likely to take a potshot at the hired temp help.

Charlie turned back to his family. "Well, this is it. I'll see you in a week or so."

"Have fun," Alan told him. "I'd tell you to get a souvenir for Amita, but they probably won't let you out to see the sights."

"Yeah." Charlie shrugged, and Don decided that his brother was once again realizing that most of the traveling he did was not for the purpose of entertainment. Well, it sort of was, since Charlie found these sorts of projects wildly interesting, but it wasn't the normal sort of fun that everyone else gravitated toward. Then again, whoever said that Charlie was normal?

Charlie sighed. "See you soon."

"See you," Don echoed, and Charlie was out the door and being handed into the black limo outside before he could blink. _No hugs. We're not the hugging type. Mom was—Mom always made sure that we had a hug before we left the house, whether it was to school in the morning when we were kids or whether it was me going off to Albuquerque. _

_Big Mom-shaped hole in our lives. Don't think we'll ever really get past that._

The security man got into the passenger's seat in front, leaving Charlie to contemplate the night through tinted and undoubtedly bullet-proof glass windows. Not that Don could see him clearly, but the driver looked to be a twin of the first security man: big enough to be a linebacker and with the ease of movement that suggested someone who worked out regularly. Don amused himself by automatically checking the license plate: California tags, five Bravo, Bravo, Larry, four—couldn't make out the rest as the car ghosted off into the night, carrying his brother to where ever. Clean getaway too, unless anyone wanted to check up on old Mr. Miller who lived three houses down and was now walking Jeeves, an old and overweight dachshund that would always snap at the neighborhood kids. Don waved at the man, more out of habit and good manners than anything else, and retreated back inside.

Alan surveyed the interior of the house. "Well, that's that. We won't hear from him for at least a week. It was closer to two weeks the last time, and Charlie could barely keep from talking about it when he got home. He really does enjoy these gigs, whatever they are."

"Yeah," Don agreed, wondering if he ought to volunteer to keep his old man company during the time that Charlie was away. _What the heck? I mean, it's not as though this didn't happen before I blew back into town. Yeah, but Dad had Mom, then. Different time, different world._ "Dad, how 'bout I—"

His cell phone warbled at him, and he snatched it up before he realized what he was doing. "Eppes."

"Don? David. Dead body, back alley behind Minover's, on Fourth."

"So? What's wrong with LAPD—?"

"They ran the prints for an ID, and all kinds of fireworks went off. They're dumping it on us, and running scared."

Don sighed. It was going to be one of _those_ cases, where they'd do a cursory investigation and shut it down unsolved because someone somewhere didn't want the truth to come out. He _so_ was not in the mood to put up with crap. "I'll be down in ten."

"Take your time. The dead body isn't going anywhere—yes, it is. Medical examiner's finished with the scene. They're bagging and tagging, and they'll be carting the guy away in another minute."

"I'll be down," Don repeated, closing up his cell. He turned to his father. "Dad—"

"Go." Alan waved him on. "It's your job. Go do it, Donnie."

* * *

The body was gone by the time Don arrived, only a memory in chalk to mark where someone had lost his life. Don squatted beside the white marks, grateful for the heavy spotlights that the forensic team had dragged in.

David Sinclair stood over him. "Still don't have a name for the guy, Don, but NSA says that he's one of theirs. They're screeching pretty loudly that we need to back away."

"What was he doing here?"

David grimaced. "They're trying to decide if they can get away without telling us."

"Yeah, well, you tell 'em they can't, David." Don straightened up, wishing that someone else had caught this case. "You tell 'em that we need at least a direction to go in, or I'm filing an official complaint for non-cooperation." He scanned the scene, wondering if anyone had been so lucky as to find something pretending to be a clue. "What have we got here?"

"Not much, Don." Colby stepped up. "That kid over there with the uniforms? The one stoned on crack? She wandered into the alley, found the body, and started screeching her lungs out. Beat cop investigated and called it in. Medical examiner thinks that the guy's been here for about a day or two, stuck between two trash cans. Nobody noticed him or the smell until now."

"No ID?"

"None." David took over. "The ME grabbed a set of prints first thing, since the body was so old. Cause of death, assuming nothing else is found during autopsy, was an execution style shooting to the back of the head."

"Gang-related, maybe? This is the turf for it, and maybe this guy just got unlucky. Tried to hang on to his wallet and got shot for his trouble."

"Not likely. The uniforms are talking to whoever they can, but nothing's popping up." Colby jerked his thumb toward the short line of rusty trashcans beyond the chalk marks. "Found a little Beretta wrapped in a banana peel. Forensics is gonna try and match the bullet. Shouldn't take too long. Sure as heck ain't a street gang."

"Yeah." Colby was right, Don mused. Street dude using an elegant little Beretta? They tended to go for something big, something long and cylindrical, something as likely to blow their own hand off as shoot their victim. They could have gotten hold of the Beretta, but Don wasn't going to bet even a wooden nickel on the possibility. "We got anything else here at the scene?"

"Nope. Neat and clean. That's another thing that makes me think that this was a pro job: no evidence. They dumped the gun after wiping it and making sure that we wouldn't get any useful prints from it. No footprints, no witnesses, no nothing." Colby wasn't happy and wasn't afraid to show it.

"Nothing but a bunch of NSA guys yelling for the body and for us to back off," David growled.

Don considered the scene, the lack of evidence, the circumstances and, most of all, the tall piles of case files towering on more desks than his own. He made a decision. "What say we let them have it? In the interests of inter-departmental cooperation and the fact that they have a hell of a lot more riding on this one than we do, I hereby declare that the FBI would be very happy to dump the NSA's mess back into their laps so that they can go back to doing whatever the hell it was that they were doing. File it, David," he instructed, knowing that if he told Colby to do the deed they'd be waiting until next Tuesday for it to happen.

"Don—!" Colby protested.

The protest was only half-hearted, and Don knew that Colby would put it out there. Colby had as much work as any of them and it was only because the man was categorically unable to put down a good puzzle that anything at all had come from the man's mouth. Actually, it irked all of them to let the thing lie, but getting irked wasn't the same thing as solving the murder. A real resolution wasn't going to happen, and they might as well move onto something that they could do something about. World peace, maybe.

* * *

It felt like about two hours, and Charlie thought that he'd recognized the darkened sign of a restaurant about fifteen miles back that let him know that the all-night diner had fallen prey to the economic downturn. _Tough times everywhere_, he thought. _People who are out of work don't go out to eat, and restaurants that don't serve customers go out of business._ Cascade effect, and he didn't need any fancy math equations to come up with that conclusion.

They had gone inland, and north. Charlie could discern the direction by the winding uphill roads that they were taking, and by the forests that grew on either side. He couldn't identify the trees, not at ten o'clock at night, but he didn't need to. If they'd gone directly east, he'd be looking at desert foliage. No, this was the same route that he'd been taken a couple of years ago, and a couple of years before that, when he'd been hired to…Nope. Part of that consultancy was to keep his mouth shut, even though the project had already made it to the next year's national budget and contributed to both national security and national debt.

If he was being taken to the same place once more, they should be arriving soon. He glanced at his watch surreptitiously. They hadn't allowed him to bring his cell phone, and Charlie, used to the ways of this business, hadn't bothered objecting to that. He would have had as much success with his cell as he had with his laptop. No point in trying.

Yes, there it was: a small, yet expensive lodge nestled into the woods, with a discrete sign that had been artfully covered over with pine branches so that the visiting temporary consultants wouldn't be able to determine exactly where they were. During the tourist season it would cater to celebrities, businessmen, and politicians who could afford to get away to a place that boasted a high fence around the grounds to keep out the riff-raff and the paparazzi. During the off-season…well, Charlie was here and he expected that he would know several of his fellow consultants. They would be well-fed, and they would convene in one or more of the conference rooms that had been outfitted with the latest in computer technology, and they would be told what the project was. At that point, they would engage in preliminary discussion as to how to approach the problem, and most of the consultants would regretfully—or gratefully—excuse themselves as having no real contributions to offer. The rest would continue to work.

Charlie maneuvered himself out of the limousine, the driver holding the door and the other security man pulling Charlie's suitcase out of the trunk. Charlie could hear the noises of the woods in the night: the last of the crickets mourning the passing of summer, the soft hoot of an owl trying to spook its prey into an inadvertent rustle that would give away the target location. Charlie drew in a deep breath, savoring the scent of pine and clean air.

"This way, sir." The driver urged Charlie to move inside where no sniper could get him. Charlie allowed a regretful smile to turn up one corner of his mouth. Like someone really wanted to go after a math teacher. Right.

There was no arguing with the security types. They never listened, and sometimes—like a broken clock—they were right. Charlie allowed himself to be guided into the lodge where the clerk behind the counter handed over a room card without even the formality of signing Charlie in.

Again, it was all as Charlie had expected. His employer had arranged for the lodge to be solely devoted to this project for the next week or two, no extraneous guests allowed, and there would be very little information flowing in or out until the bulk of the work was done. Charlie followed the bellhop along the long hallway to the suite that was assigned to him, noting that the hallways had been re-carpeted yet again. This time the carpet was red. Last time it had been blue.

The bellhop set up Charlie's suitcase on the stand. "Everyone will be gathering in Conference Room A, Professor Eppes, at nine tomorrow," he said, proving that he wasn't one of the regular staff but a security man brought in by Charlie's new employers. He knew exactly who Professor Eppes was and what his place in the schematics of the world would be for the next two weeks, and the man had been specifically assigned to ensure that there would be no deviations from The Plan. "A continental breakfast will be available at seven."

Charlie wasn't surprised. It was the same thing that had happened the last time, and the time before that. Someone had a healthy sense of paranoia, and had brought in his own staff to keep the consultants in and the spies out. It would be an annoyance putting up with it, because it interfered with Charlie's desire to explore his surroundings, but it was a small price to pay for the opportunity to work with some really fine researchers. The paycheck he earned didn't hurt, either.

On the other hand…"Thank you," he said. "Oh, and would you pass the word? I expect to go running tomorrow, before breakfast. Sometime around seven, I think." He smiled at the 'bellhop'. "I know that's something you folks like to keep track of." _Because it's an opportunity for someone to sneak out a little unauthorized communication_.

Polite expression of regret. "There's a treadmill in the spa, sir."

"Not nearly as good as getting outside and smelling the fresh air," Charlie assured him, offering a tip. "I'll be down in the lobby at seven."

"Very good, sir." The 'bellhop' took his leave, pocketing his money and pretending that such tips would make a difference in this week's paycheck. Pretending that he really was part of the staff of the lodge.

Charlie turned to hang up his clothing and let the wrinkles fall out, grinning to himself. Exposure to his brother was doing him some good; the twinkle in the 'bellhop's' eye said very clearly that the security man too would appreciate the fresh air and exercise and would likewise appreciate Charlie pushing the issue.

Clearly the 'staff' was used to requests from the visiting geniuses, and had received instructions on how to handle them.

* * *

Don sipped at his coffee slowly, knowing that he'd be downing his second and possibly his third along with a few antacids before the clock chimed ten. It was going to be a desk day, eight hours of writing and re-writing reports and doing his best to shrink the pile of papers that was threatening to take over his desk and the rest of the world. If he was lucky, he'd be able to take a break after lunch and get in some target practice; anything to get his butt out of his chair and his muscles to moving. He scanned the quantity of paperwork in front of him, and decided that if he could finish off both the Douglas case and the one involving the Green Acres fraud stuff then he'd be entitled to the entertainment. David too could come along. Not Colby; the junior agent's stack was half again as high as Don's, proving that Colby needed to step up his speed with reports if he wanted to keep up. Don regarded the younger agent with satisfaction. Colby Granger could write reports with the best of 'em, but hated the task and tried every which way to get out of it. The result: Don and David got time off, and Colby didn't.

A shadow fell over Don's desk, and he looked up.

His visitor was tall and whip-cord thin, with piercing eyes that acquired every detail around him. Short dark hair topped off the package that included a brown corduroy jacket and jeans, clothing that made it easy to move quickly when the situation called for it. The boots that the man wore had already traveled many miles and in many different terrains.

Don recognized him immediately. He set down his mug and extended his hand in greeting. "Ian. Good to see you. What brings you to L.A.?"

Ian Edgerton could have made small talk, a bit of idle chitchat before getting down to business.

Not his style. "Your corpse, Eppes. What'cha got on him?"

There were many things that Don could have said, starting with 'which corpse?' and following up with 'what's your interest, Ian?'

None of those options were what Don selected. Instead, he rose and circled around his desk. "Let's grab a cup of coffee."

"I could use some."

Neither one mentioned the unfinished cup that sat still steaming on Don's desk. That wasn't the point. Getting away from the 'office' environment was.

The in house cafeteria wasn't crowded at this time of day. Everyone else had grabbed their early morning contribution to their waistline and made a beeline out through the double doors, trying not to spill anything. Don selected a table in one corner of the large room, a spot where both he and Edgerton could stare out the window and see what was coming at them. It was an ingrained habit, to always be aware of surroundings. Not being able to do it made Don uncomfortable, and he strongly suspected that the same thing drove Ian up the proverbial wall.

Don set a fresh cup down on the table. It was sunny outside, with a number of people still on their way into the office. Here and there a jogger darted in and around the pedestrians, puffing and huffing at the Los Angeles smog that passed for air. _Lucky Charlie. He's not putting up with this crap in the air. Wonder where he is?_

"Yeah, but today's not all that bad," Ian agreed.

A crooked smile pasted itself onto Don's chin. "You gettin' psychic, Ian?"

"Hah. Always was, Don. How's Charlie?" Ian had a soft spot for Don's brother, and a newly acquired appreciation for the power of numbers.

"Doing well. Doing well," Don repeated. "Off on a gig. Some hush-hush consultant thing."

Ian let a frown slip past his lips, so fast that Don wondered if he'd missed something. "Hope we won't need him."

"We?" Don queried. "What's this 'we' stuff, Ian?" He sipped at the coffee, grimacing at the scalding heat. It tasted good, though. Just enough bitterness to cut through whatever crap Ian was about to try to hand over.

Ian stared out through the bullet-proof panes of glass. Here, in the cafeteria, tinting turned the windows just dark enough to prevent premature fading of the plastic seat covers. The official line was that it protected the eyes of the employees from the nasty sunlight outside, with all of those horrible ultra-violet rays.

_If that was the case, both me and Ian would be blind by now with all the time we spend outside_. "You got something to tell me, Ian?"

Edgerton took a long sip, trying to beat Don in the toasted taste buds race. "You find anything on the corpse from last night?"

Don countered with a question of his own. "You know him?"

The answer came quick. "Never met the guy."

So that was how the man wanted to play it. "Not what I asked, Ian." Reprovingly. _You on my side, or what?_

The sigh wasn't heavy but the smile was crooked. "They told me to track him."

No need to ask who 'they' were. There was only a small group of individuals who were entitled to tell Ian to do anything, and all of them lived in Washington and collected hefty paychecks for their work at the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Don moved on to the next piece of missing information. "They give you a name?"

"They gave me the latest in a series of aliases," Ian acknowledged. "If you look up Barry Goldwasser, of Silver Springs, Maryland, you'll get a whole book of fiction followed by some very polite folks wondering why you're dabbling in some government databases."

"And who do those polite folks work for? Uncle Sam, like us?"

This time Ian gave Don a distinctly unhappy look. "No. Not that anyone admits to, and I checked with a lot of people both on and off the record. Wouldn't surprise me, though, if some military-related company was footing the bill for this. Our 'Barry Goldwasser' met up with several ex-soldiers, mercenaries mostly, and there have been a few more hovering around in his general vicinity, where ever that might be at the time."

"You saw him?"

"From a distance. Met with one here, one there. One of his connections was with a guy named Joseph Murdoch."

Don whistled under his breath. "We talkin' the same Joe Murdoch who's running with DarkSeas, Inc.?"

"You got it."

Don leaned back in his seat. "So what's the link? What are they looking for?"

Ian shrugged. "That's what we're trying to find out. The word in Washington is that DarkSeas is trying to come up with a fancy new gadget that it can sell to the Pentagon."

That didn't make sense to Don, and he said so. "DarkSeas is a military temp agency, Ian. They supply mercenaries, not weaponry. Why are they dabbling in high tech weaponry? If anything, I would think that they would explore some straightforward automatics, something that the ground soldier could use."

"They're expanding."

"Not buying it, Ian," Don told him. "There's a hell of big difference between hiring a bunch of soldiers looking for big bucks and getting something high tech onto a production line. DarkSeas doesn't have the background for this. That takes some deep pockets and expertise, neither of which DarkSeas owns." Don hesitated. "Well, maybe they've got the deep pockets, but definitely not the scientific expertise."

"Exactly what my handlers in Washington thought," Ian agreed, "which is what brought me into your backyard to play."

"You really here to play fair, or are you expecting to grab the catcher's mitt and run?" Don had been on the receiving end of too many fast and loose Washington plays.

Ian gave him a hurt look, putting his hand over his heart. "Eppes! You wound me. Have I ever—"

"Save it, Ian," Don interrupted. "Save it for someone you can fool at least some of the time." He settled back onto his seat. "Why was Goldwasser here in L.A.?"

Ian too settled down, and got to the swapping part of the discussion. "My people back East told me that this was just a fishing expedition, but the way this is shaking out? I doubt it. Somebody somewhere knew something and is trying to get someone else out of the closet."

"Darkseas?"

"Maybe. Maybe not. Too early to tell. They're definitely involved." He cocked his head. "That's why I'm here. What'cha got on the body?"

Don sighed. "Now, a name that you just gave me. Nothing before that."

"Cause of death?"

"Prelim is execution-style bullet to the back of the neck. Instantaneous death."

"When will your ME finish the autopsy?"

"Never. NSA came and claimed the body. Said he was one of theirs."

"NSA?" Ian jerked in surprise. "He's not—" he interrupted himself. "Not important. Anything on the body?"

Don, however, had seized on the break. "What do you mean, he's not NSA? They wanted the body. Who did he belong to?"

Ian's lips tightened. "Us."

Don's jaw dropped. "Us? You mean, us as in 'FBI'? Then, why the hell didn't we hang onto the body, Ian? Why didn't his fingerprints show up on _our_ database? Those fireworks should have been lit from our own guys."

"Right." Ian lapsed into thought.

"Ian?"

There was an uncomfortable amount of silence.

"Ian? What the hell's going on, Ian?"

Ian took a deep breath. "I'm thinking that there's a lot fancy dancing going on somewhere behind the scenes, Don, and I'm not liking it one bit. I was told that Goldwasser's superiors thought that he might be on the take, setting up some meetings that we needed to know about. Somebody else said that he was a CIA spook, that I should back off. That word came from somebody connected to the NSA. Not an employee, mind you, but someone with close ties." Ian's next smile was tight and humorless. "I pretended to back off."

Meaning that the man faded into the background so that even a bloodhound wouldn't be able to find him. Don understood that part thoroughly.

"I lost him two days ago, down in San Diego. And then he turned up here. Dead."

Execution-style bullet to the back of the neck. Handgun tossed to the side; no sense in trying to hide that piece of evidence. Don could just bet that the serial number would have been obliterated for just this sort of thing.

"There's a cover up going on." It was an unnecessary statement, but it did Don good to hear it out loud. It didn't sound paranoid, which was what he had feared. It sounded uncomfortably close to the truth.

Ian agreed. "Question is: who's doing the covering up? What needs to be covered?" He considered the situation. "Any chance that they haven't transferred the body? You found him, what, this morning?"

"Last night," Don corrected. "You're thinking we might find something?"

"I'm thinking that we might pull back the transfer," Ian retorted. "I'm telling you, Don, this is not looking good."

"Then let's see if the NSA has moved fast." Don gulped the last swallow of his coffee, wincing at the bitter dregs. He tossed the paper cup into the trash, unhappily grateful for the caffeine buzz that threatened him with an ulcer. "Let's hit the morgue."


	2. Development

A small slice of Heaven on Earth. No, actually, Charlie could consider it a rather large slice, considering how much acreage the lodge possessed.

Not that Charlie was supposed to know where he was, but Charlie was, after all, a mathematician who had been hired for his expertise in applied math. A little work on the side for the FBI had only sharpened his mathematical investigative skills, to the point where he was reasonably certain that he knew approximately where he was with relationship to the North Pole. There were only so many upscale lodges in this part of California, and two hours driving up into the mountains wasn't long enough to get him out of the state. If he'd cared to, Charlie suspected that he could even narrow his location down even further by calling up a few satellite maps and making an educated guess.

It wasn't important at the moment. If his temporary employers wanted to pretend to be oh so hush-hush, then Charlie would play along. This lodge was most likely nestled within the Tehachapi mountains, almost due north of Los Angeles. There was always the possibility that Charlie had mis-estimated the travel time and they had ended up in the Paiute's, but he doubted it.

Not at all important right now. What was far more important was that Charlie was jogging along one of the trails located behind the lodge, feeling the wind pass his face and pump in and out of his lungs.

Behind him was one of the 'staff', doing his own jogging. Charlie suspected that the man was carrying a carefully concealed gun under his sweats in an excess of caution. The security man was keeping up with him, too. Charlie grinned to himself. He'd expect security people like that to work out, but most of the ones he'd met tended toward weight lifting rather than cardio. If Charlie had to have an escort on his morning run, he was grateful that the guy could keep up. The last time he was here, his 'minder' was huffing and puffing until Charlie was concerned that the guy would have a heart attack on the back mile.

Charlie smirked. He wasn't the only one to become accustomed to these little two week gigs. His 'employers' had learned from the last one, figured out that they'd better have at least one guy on hand who could keep tabs on the math whiz. Not all of the intellectual hired help were seventy year old gray-haired academicians.

Charlie concentrated on enjoying his surroundings. The air was crisp and cold, and smelled of pine and autumn each time his foot hit the packed dirt beneath. Tall trees loomed over head. Red and gold leaves still clung to their branches, refusing to acknowledge the oncoming chill, and birds twittered at the two intruders in their mist, warning the humans to stay away. Up on the slope Charlie caught sight of three deer, antlers in full bloom, curiously eyeing the strange bipedal creatures huffing and puffing along the trail.

Truly, Heaven on Earth.

What more could he ask for? A beautiful spot for the next two weeks, a problem to challenge his mind, and the company of intellectual equals in complementary fields of research. Well, it would be nice to have Amita and Larry here, but there were limits…

Charlie already had an inkling of what the intellectual challenge would be. This much security suggested that it would be along the lines of a military application. Beyond that, Charlie made use of his knowledge of some of his fellow researchers: Professor Walter Husinger, mechanical engineering. Allison Jeter, a woman who whizzed through cyber space faster than the electrons themselves. Dr. Robert McKenzie, expert in robotics, along with Professor Peter Whimsey whose field of interest was aeronautics. There were two dozen others, all noted for more cleverness in their respective fields than average, and all here for the same purpose. That purpose had yet to be divulged.

Charlie came to a fork in the path, and he paused, trying to figure out which path would give him the work out he desired.

The security man pulled up behind him. "The left fork, sir," he directed. "The right is off-limits right now. There was a recent fire, and the slope is a little unstable."

Definitely the Tehachapi mountains. Charlie remembered catching a small blurb somewhere about a recent fire that had been quickly and efficiently doused by the local fire service before it could turn into one of the massive wildfires that California was known for. Not that it mattered where he was; Charlie would do his part of the project, and the mysterious limo would deliver him back to his home in Los Angeles in time for the next semester to begin.

Charlie finished up his run, bidding his escort adieu upon their safe return to the lodge—not that Charlie had expected anything different. An excess of security, but that was what these sorts of employers doted upon. If they weren't worried about industrial espionage, then they were worried about national security. They had to worry about something, and that worry meant jobs for some people with some highly specialized skills. His brother could do it, Charlie decided, but had an additional set of skills that the FBI valued: solving cases.

Charlie spent a couple of extra minutes in the hot shower, washing away the honest sweat, wondering if he could somehow get his brother and father up here for a vacation in the near future. The scent of the body soap tickled his nose, lathering across the dark hair on his chest before the hot water sluiced it away. They'd both like it, he decided, but Charlie's current employers would have a hissy fit that one of the flock had figured out where the hidey hole was. Hmm…wouldn't it be fun to watch people like that scurry around in a panic? Yeah, he'd definitely have to look into it. Amita and Larry, too; he'd bring them, as well. A nice picnic on a warm summer day, just he and Amita, maybe dip their toes in the cold water trickling down the mountainside…

He snagged a bran muffin from the breakfast buffet just in time to be summoned to Conference Room A. For some unaccountable reason, the face of Ian Edgerton floated through his mind: "never come between a man and his fiber" was what the sniper had told him.

Charlie had the greatest respect for his brother's colleague. Edgerton was as brilliant in his own field as Charlie was in math, and Charlie was pleased that he could honestly say he'd convinced Edgerton of the value of math in Edgerton's area of expertise. Charlie idly wondered where Edgerton was. It could be anywhere in the country, possibly in the world, although Charlie had the impression that Edgerton was kept in the western part of the United States where his tracking abilities couldn't be beat.

Why had Edgerton come to mind? Charlie hadn't seen the sniper in months. No matter; it was time to turn his thoughts to the speaker in the front of the room. The room was larger than was needed for this project with some three dozen researchers to house, and the lodge had cut down on the extra space by placing a mahogany table in the center for them to lean their elbows on.

The speaker was male, Caucasian, late forties or perhaps early fifties. Didn't bother to keep fit, as evidenced by the expanding waistline that the belt failed to keep in check. Full head of black hair, though Charlie couldn't tell whether it was because of good genes or good cosmetic work. Hah—Charlie was becoming infected by Don, automatically cataloging the features of everyone that he came in contact with. Next he'd be estimating the man's take home pay, and it was likely substantially more than Charlie's, even with this gig to bolster his bottom line.

"For security purposes," the man was saying, "we are not going to discuss the real name of your employer. Understand that your remuneration will arrive in the form of a consultancy fee from a dummy corporation by the name of AutoDyne, and this corporation has been formed in order to provide for this exact project. It will be dissolved immediately following the successful conclusion of this project and all appropriate financial statements filed with the federal, state, and local authorities. Please do not attempt to hide this consultancy from the IRS; this is being reported as income."

More than one set of shoulders shrugged. These were the standard opening lines so that the people in charge could deny responsibility, etc. Real Mission Impossible stuff. Everyone had heard it before and was eager to move on to the true reason that they were here.

"Most of you are aware of the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan," the speaker went on. It was not a joke, this recitation of current events. Some of his fellow researchers, Charlie knew, were so caught up in their research that they couldn't name the sitting president of the US, let alone the ongoing fighting in that region of the world. Charlie himself didn't profess to have any great knowledge of all of the influences that affected the misery that was killing people on a daily basis in both countries, but he could at least say _there ought to be a better way_.

"One of the more successful tactics have been drones," the speaker told them. "Satellite imaging detects an enemy incursion or a military target. The target is confirmed by a second method, and then a drone delivers the payload."

Charlie translated the military-ese: a satellite spots something, and an unmanned plane drops a bomb onto it.

"The advantage to this approach has been a decrease in the death rate of American soldiers and those of allied countries. The disadvantage," the speaker said dryly, "is the number of innocent civilian deaths. Both Afghanistan and Pakistan are understandably upset over those casualties, as is the rest of the civilized world. A better approach is needed."

Charlie leaned back in his chair. Next up: the real purpose of this little soiree.

He was right. "What is needed," the speaker told the group, "is a delivery method for the payload that can discriminate between military and civilian targets. We need an unmanned drone that can approach the identified target, determine its potential, examine the surrounding area for non-combatants, and then, if acknowledged as a threat, neutralize it."

There was a few pregnant moments filled with thought. Then—

"Method of neutralization?"

"Size?"

"How far does it have to travel?"

"Type of detonation?"

"What exactly is it looking for? I need—"

"What type of terrain—?"

The questions didn't stop. More kept spilling out, over and over, as the group sought to define the parameters in which to work. Charlie himself asked very few, mainly listening to what the others said. That was where his own expertise would come in. Once the project had been reduced to a manageable size, math would take over to efficiently and effectively put the scheme into operation.

Take out military targets but leave the civilians alone? Charlie could get behind that.

* * *

"Now I know something is going on," Ian said mournfully. "Have you ever known the NSA to move so fast?"

"Not on something like this," Colby agreed.

Don and Ian had rejoined the rest of Don's team in his cubicle. Don had reclaimed his chair, his people the surrounding seats, and Ian had perched himself on one corner of Don's desk. Not one of them was happy.

"All right, so NSA now has the body. We've still got the reports that we all wrote on the crime scene, even if they snatched up all the hard evidence," Don told them. "And we all know that the evidence was saying squat."

David agreed. "The body was stripped clean of identification. It was only when we ran the prints that the smoke signals went up for the NSA. Even the murder weapon had its serial numbers filed off, and nobody here took the time to try to raise the numbers because by then we knew that it wasn't going to be our case."

"How about the crime scene?" Don asked. "I mean, David, you and Colby were there. Anything stand out?"

"Not a thing, Don, beyond the fact that it was a pro job in a back alley," Colby grouched. "Whoever it was cleaned up nicely after themselves."

"A well-brought up murderer," Ian said grimly.

"What about who he was meeting with, Ian?" Don turned to that aspect. "You said you were following him across the country. Where can we go with that?"

"No pun intended?" Ian arched his eyebrows. "He met with a guy in a hotel downtown. I got his picture right here. That was a couple days ago." Ian offered his cell phone.

The picture was extraordinarily clear for a cell phone camera, and close up. Don felt a new respect for the sniper. Ian must have walked right by the guy, cool as a cucumber, probably pretending to talk on the phone as he snapped the shutter. Practice, too, to be able to aim that well without seeing the image; Don nodded his appreciation of Ian's skills. "NSA know you have this?"

"Until a few minutes ago, I didn't know that the NSA was claiming that Goldwasser was one of theirs."

Colby raised his hand. "I volunteer to run his picture past the hotel clerk. David, you with me?"

David spoke up. "How about we run that picture through some databases, see what comes up?"

Don shook his head. "Not yet. Remember how fast the NSA pounced on the corpse? How much you want to bet that they'll do the same thing if something pings on this guy's jacket and he belongs to them? Maybe belongs to the CIA?"

Ian grimaced. "You've got a point, Eppes. You think Charlie could slide us past their security?" He interrupted himself. "Oops, forgot. He's out of town. When will he be back?"

Don shrugged. "Two days, two weeks. They didn't tell him. It was one of those hush-hush things."

"You don't suppose that they could be connected?" Colby asked. "Or am I just getting paranoid?"

"You're getting paranoid," Don told him. "After all, how much trouble can a math teacher get into?"

* * *

Ravenous. Charlie—and several others—hadn't realized that it was well past nine at night when the heated discussion finally wound down.

He looked around, coming up for air. The room had cleared out except for a half dozen researchers and himself. The other dozen had already gotten hungry and bored, and wandered off in search of sustenance. The ones who were left had that equally befuddled look on their faces that suggested that they were much the same state as Charlie: the excitement of the project had overwhelmed any mere considerations such as food or rest.

If he wanted to, Charlie could have applied some of the Group Dynamic equations to delineate how the researchers had broken up into smaller work groups. The original speaker had withdrawn to a corner of the room to merely observe the social interactions, watching who spoke to whom and who showed excitement over which individual idea. The mob of almost three dozen geniuses had gradually morphed into four groups, each working on their own version of a design to meet the desired outcome. From experience, Charlie knew that one or more of those designs would be selected for further development during this two week period. It was likely that only one, perhaps two, would go any further than that. Their unknown employer would choose whichever project appeared to be the most practical and worthwhile, and dismiss the others.

Charlie himself had been in the thick of one of the smaller groupings, the ideas flying back and forth faster than photons in a vacuum. Professor Walter Husinger showed the stress in particular, his eyes twinkling with the effort of keeping up with his fellows—not that any of the others felt any less stress. Husinger mopped at his brow, pushing back the thinning strands of gray hair. "Enjoyable, Professor Eppes. Most enjoyable. I had no idea that the limits of tolerance on metallic stress could be pushed so far. This will have applications beyond this single project."

"Yes, but will those tolerances stand up in real life situations?" Dr. Amelia Jeter wanted to know. She grinned. "I can't wait to start designing the computer modeling."

The speaker stepped up. Charlie blinked, realizing that the man was still in the room. "Congratulations," the speaker said, smiling broadly. "I'll have to consult with my people, but from the sounds of things, the group right here has created the next level of warfare."

Charlie winced. He—and the rest of them, from their expressions—had forgotten what the project was really about. It was all well and fine to design a tool that would minimize the loss of human life, but coming up with ways to prevent the need for such tools would be far more desirable.

The speaker grinned, sticking out his hand to shake those in the group. "Marcos Tanvey," he introduced himself, "of AutoDyne, Inc. Welcome to your new employers."

Professor Whimsey hesitated. "New employers? I understood the contract to say that we would be hired to design a new product, the details of which would be made clear only upon our arrival here. That has occurred, and we have made substantial headway on the project. There's a great deal yet to be accomplished—we've only roughed out the initial product design—but further employment beyond project design was never agreed to. This was a short term contract."

"We should be able to accomplish most, if not all, of the really intricate parts within the two week window," Dr. Michael McKenzie added complacently. "I must say: brilliant recruitment efforts. You did a fine job in determining the best members to fill out the group, and Dr. Eppes here really sped along the process. Why, I've been involved with projects similar to this that dragged on for weeks. Weeks, I tell you! It was enough to drive a man stark raving—"

"Yes, we remember that particular project," Dr. Jeter interrupted. Clearly she had heard the story more than once. "However, I do agree. Having a mathematician along certainly improved the work flow. Thank you, Dr. Eppes."

"My pleasure," Charlie returned. "It's been fascinating working alongside of you all. I'll be sorry to see it end."

"And you don't have to," Tanvey cut in. "AutoDyne is more than willing to hire you, at substantially more than what you could make in academia. We are located in one of the nicer suburbs of Washington, and we have a generous relocation package—"

Husinger shook his head. "Thank you, young man, but I'm afraid that I'm not interested. As tempting as your offer might be, I'm really quite satisfied with my current position."

"You haven't heard the offer," Tanvey protested. "Believe me, you could retire a wealthy man, Dr. Husinger."

Husinger harrumphed. "I already _am _a wealthy man. I have more than enough money to last me for the rest of my years. No, sir, I find more than adequate recompense in the upturned faces of my students." He harrumphed again, considering. "Perhaps I should say _downturned_. These days, I find most of them taller than I and more likely to peer down upon these rheumy old features."

Tanvey turned to the others. "How about the rest of you? Interested?"

McKenzie shrugged. "I'm afraid I must agree with Professor Husinger. At my age I would find it difficult to uproot myself and move to another area of the country. I have my grandchildren to consider, sir. Should I move, I doubt I should see them more than once or twice yearly. A man tends to value these things far more he does as a youth. Aye, Husinger?"

"Quite, McKenzie."

"I'd like to hear more," Amelia Jeter inserted. "Well, what?" she sniffed. "My funding got cut this year."

"_Everyone's_ funding was cut, woman!"

"Yes, but not everyone needs gawd-awful sums of money to purchase computer time," Jeter snapped back. She faced Tanvey. "I can use a good salary but even more than that: what kind of budget are you offering? _That's_ what I'm really interested in."

"Whatever you need," Tanvey said smoothly. "Whatever you need, it can be arranged. We value your services very highly. And you, Dr. Whimsey? What would it take to entice you? Salary? Benefits? Large operating budget?"

Whimsey lifted an eyebrow. "How about an additional job for an unemployed son in law who is trying to support my grandchildren?"

"Done."

The other eyebrow joined the first. "You haven't asked about his resume."

Tanvey smiled tightly. "Cost of doing business, doctor. Cost of doing business. I'm sure we can find something for him to do." He turned to the last member of the group. "And you, Professor Eppes? Surely you'd enjoy moving to an area with a faster pace. You'd have the chance to hobnob with the movers and shakers of the world; a chance to influence the course of world history."

Husinger sniffed. "Perhaps you aren't aware, Tanvey, but Dr. Eppes has _already_ moved the world. His Convergence Theory stood the field of mathematics on its ear a few years ago."

Jeter sounded more snarky. "Just because the world hasn't heard about it, doesn't mean that it won't impact science. I've already seen the effects in my own field." She turned to Charlie. "How about it? Join me? I'd like to see what you and I could put together if we had close to unlimited resources."

Charlie grinned amiably. "Tempting, but I'm pretty happy where I am right now. There are a few others that I can recommend to you, if you like. One of my grad students is defending her thesis next month; she might be a good fit for this."

Tanvey held up a cautionary finger. "Ah, but can CalSci pay you what you're worth? Universities are notoriously stingy when it comes to salaries."

Charlie held up his own finger and added a grin. "Which is why I accepted your invitation to participate in this project." He moved on to the next piece of the puzzle. "How shall we proceed, Mr. Tanvey? As my colleagues have indicated, we've roughed out the basic design of what you want. It will take us the rest of the week to put together the specs that you can take back to your bosses to start putting together a program to develop a prototype. Probably not two weeks," he mused. "We got a lot accomplished in just this one day."

Tanvey shrugged good-naturedly. "I could always try," he murmured. "Professors, let's call it a night for now," he said, indicating the clock on the wall with the little hand pointing toward ten. "I'm going to ask you to reconvene tomorrow morning to continue working toward a prototype design. I'll dismiss the other researchers, unless there's any others that you'd like to have stay. No? Very well, then; they'll be leaving with their remuneration as soon as I arrange the appropriate transportation. As you work on this project, those of you who have indicated that you don't wish long term work, please consider who you'd suggest that we approach to carry on your ideas. I'm certain that each of you has a better grasp of the available talent in your respective fields." He doffed a non-existent hat. "Let's call it a night," he repeated. "Until tomorrow."


	3. A Few More Questions

The Boswell Hotel was one of those ritzy, downtown glamour hotels with a lobby big enough to fit Colby's entire apartment with room to walk around the edges. The windows that let out onto the street weren't just two stories tall, but three. The chandelier alone looked to be the size of a moderately sized elephant. This year's décor had decided upon gold, with a hint of red to indicate wealth above and beyond the grasp of mere mortals. The tile on the floor of the lobby was beige with gold flecks, the furniture was upholstered in gold velvet, and even the help was required to wear gold-colored jackets to suggest that they were part of the hotel furnishings. Colby idly wondered if they got paid enough to work in this place. He suspected so; paying decent wages led to good people getting hired, the type who made the effort and gave this dump its good name for putting up with the shenanigans of the people who stayed here. In fact, Colby thought uncomfortably, the hired help here probably earned as much as he himself did. Maybe more, after tips. _Definitely_ more, after failing to report those tips to the IRS.

Not what he was here for, and neither was David Sinclair. His fellow agent was trailing him by some three feet, eyes peeled for anyone who looked like the man in Ian Edgerton's photo. That same image was burning a hole in Colby's pocket. The person that they were looking for was a male Caucasian, forty to fifty years old, dark brown hair with a hint of gray at the temples, and a smooth and unlined face. Ian had added that the dude was some six feet tall, give or take an inch or two. There were some half a dozen people in the lobby who met the description—this was, after all, L.A., where people routinely came in good-looking sizes, shapes, and colors—but none looked like the face in the photo.

Colby approached the desk, pulling out his identification. "Granger, FBI," he introduced himself quietly. No need to advertise the fact that the FBI was on the premises—not yet, anyway.

The hotel concierge lifted one supercilious eyebrow. "How may I help you, sir?" he inquired.

Colby extracted the photo. "Have you seen this man before?"

The concierge didn't need to look at the photo. "No, sir."

Colby dropped his voice by half an octave. "Look, guy, I'm not here to make trouble for you or this place that you work for or for the paying customers who can't decide whether they want peace and quiet or the publicity that comes with raising a ruckus. All I want to know is where this dude is. You give me that, and I go away quietly. Your patrons and your bosses stay happy," he added. "Capish?" He proffered the photo once more. "Ever seen this guy before? Remember, you're talkin' to the FBI, not just LAPD."

The concierge's eyes widened for just an instant, and Colby knew the answer.

He didn't push. Not yet.

The concierge sighed heavily. "It is the policy of the Boswell Hotel that we do not discuss the affairs of our patrons," he intoned, "not even when they reside in room 1217, and especially when we are aware that they are out for the day, conducting whatever business they are in town to conduct. Nor may I inform you that a single cab belonging to the Sunny Skies Taxi Service was outside at the curb, waiting for customers, at the time that many, many of our patrons were exiting the hotel."

Colby pocketed the photo. "I understand completely," he said, pulling back as much sarcasm as he could manage. "Thank you for your time. It's too bad that you didn't have any information for me," he couldn't help but add.

"I quite agree, sir. And I hope that, some time in the future, you will be able to spend some of your leisure time with us."

Colby took his leave, David trailing him. "At these prices? Not in this lifetime."

They withdrew to the far corner of the massive lobby to regroup. "What do you think?" Colby asked under his breath. "You want to try getting into his room?"

"On what pretense?" David asked. "No judge in the world is going to issue a warrant for a search, not without a stronger line connecting the dots. The hotel management—and I'm not talking our friend over there in the gold jacket—is going to demand some serious legal paper if we go that route and by then we might as well hold up a sign saying, 'paging the murderer of Barry Goldwasser'. And that's assuming that we could make the case that he's the murderer, which is a long stretch to begin with, Colby."

"You're right," Colby was forced to admit. "You want to try a stake out, put somebody in the lobby to watch for the guy?"

"Not the worst idea I've heard," David thought. "Maybe we can see if there's a rookie somewhere? I don't think we could persuade anyone else to spend all day here."

Colby disagreed. "Anna Maria would. You know how star-crazy she is. She'd enjoy a chance to sit here, watching for celebs along with our suspect."

David snickered. "You got it." He pulled out his cell. "One Anna Maria DiFilippo, celeb-watcher, coming up."

* * *

This was a pleasure, Don decided. He was actually dealing with someone helpful, for a change, and he commanded his inclination to bark to settle down and take a back seat.

He and Ian were at the Sunny Skies Taxi dispatch office with the dispatcher slash owner of the small business, and the man was honestly trying to figure out which of his dozen employees had picked up a fare at approximately ten in the morning at the Boswell Hotel a few days ago.

"Nope, not Frankie, and not Rashid or Heather," he muttered to himself, tugging on the tiny goatee that hadn't truly decided if it was going to cooperate by growing in fully. "They worked nights. Heather doesn't usually, but she had an audition the day before, and switched. It could have been Tulip."

"Tulip?" Ian was amused by the name.

"Yeah. He's got some other name that nobody can pronounce, so we just call him Tulip. When we're not calling him other names," the dispatcher muttered darkly. "Yo, FlowerPot! Come in. You got a fare?"

There was a burst of static, which the dispatcher understood and Don and Ian did not.

"Right. Listen, you pick up a fare at the Boswell, like two-three days ago around ten AM?"

Another burst.

"Yeah, that's the one. Listen, I got some FBI guys here, need to talk to you. You finish your fare and come on in, hear?"

Another short round of static, this time distinctly unhappy.

Don correctly interpreted this one. "Tell 'im I'll give him a twenty for being a good citizen."

The dispatcher nodded gratefully, and passed on the message. "Thanks, guy. Every minute they're not hauling, they're losing money and some of these guys are living on the edge to begin with. He ain't no citizen, neither. He's one of them immigrants, got a green card and everything. I checked; I'm an upstanding employer. I play by the rules, don't want no trouble here." He glanced at the dog-eared map tacked to the wall; a far cry from the maps for which Charlie would use the office projector to set up his demonstrations to Don's team. "Tulip'll get here in about twenty. Make yourselves comfortable, guys. I ain't got no coffee here, but there's a Starbuck's across the street if you wanna get."

"Thanks," Don told him, withdrawing to let the dispatcher get back to work. They waited until their potential witness rolled in through the garage and parked his cab.

'Tulip' turned out to be one of the biggest men that Don had ever come across. He looked to be close to seven feet tall, and Don was willing to concede that the vast majority of two hundred fifty pounds was muscle. The man was huge!

He was also not happy. He was nervous, and it showed.

"I have rights," he told the pair upon entering the small antechamber where Don and Ian were waiting for him. His voice was cultured, bearing a hint of the Queen's English. Africa, Don decided, was where this man had been born, one of the former English colonies, and where the man had left to try to make a better life for himself. He was probably sending money home for relatives, to keep them from starving, Don thought. This was not a man who was a career criminal.

The man also refused to sit. "I have done nothing wrong, and I have the right to an attorney."

"Hey, slow down," Don protested. "Listen, we're not here to hassle you. All we want is some information about a fare you picked up a couple days ago at the Boswell. You remember anything like that?"

"I will take my test to become a United States citizen in two days." Tulip wasn't finished, and he was having a hard time letting go of his fear.

"That's a good thing," Ian told him, "and you're doing another good thing by talking to us. We're after a murderer, and we think you may have picked him up at the Boswell. What can you tell us?"

"You're not going to deport me?"

"You're here legally, right?" Don leaned back in his chair and looked up at him.

"That is correct. My papers are in order."

"And you're studying to become a U.S. citizen."

"That is also correct. I take my examination in two days. I can recite the Preamble, the First Amendment which is the right to free speech—"

"I got it," Don interrupted hastily. "Let's move on to this fare that you picked up." He slid the twenty from his wallet across the coffee table toward Tulip, to try to steer the conversation back to the matter at hand as well as convince the witness that the two FBI agents had no intention of hauling his large and well-muscled ass over to Immigration. "Sit down and talk, guy. Ever seen this man?" he asked, pushing the photo over to sit beside the twenty.

"Yes, sir, I have." There was no doubt in Tulip's tone. "I was waiting at the Boswell Hotel for the next fare to come out. The line of cabs was short, and many people were taking cabs that morning. I moved up to first in line. This man came out, and the doorman ushered him to my cab, as I was the next in line and it was my turn to receive a fare."

"Where did you take him?" Ian asked. Only Don could sense the tension in the sniper. Not a muscle was out of place, but Don could feel the excitement rising.

"I took him to 1415 West Hanover," Tulip announced. "I took him by a direct route. I did not overcharge him. I did not take detours in order to make more money."

"West Hanover? You're sure?"

"I am sure," Tulip avowed. "He gave me a good tip."

Don explored it further. "Did he say anything during the drive? Make any phone calls?"

Tulip frowned. This was not part of his carefully remembered script. "I…"

"Think," Don urged. "You'd look back in the mirror every now and again. Did he maybe pull out his wallet?"

The eyebrows furrowed. "I believe…I believe that he spoke on his cell phone. Yes, I am sure of it. His cell phone."

"Why did he say?"

"I did not listen to a private conversation," Tulip informed him virtuously.

Not buying it. "Didn't hear any words at all? Not one?"

"Well…" There was some wrestling with a certain conscience. "Perhaps I heard the word: detonation."

And after that, Tulip didn't listen to anything else. Right. Don leaned forward. "What other words?"

It was like pulling teeth. Slowly, Don and Ian pieced the tale together from the bits that Tulip remembered.

Tulip's passenger had received the call some half way through the drive. The discussion had been centered around some project in development, something that went boom. Tulip's impression was that his passenger was facilitating the deployment of personnel to build the thing, and that there were a number of high level flunkies who were very excited over its possibilities. Tulip had deposited his passenger at 1415 West Hanover, and that had been the end of it as far as Tulip was concerned.

Ian looked at Don. "I think we've got our next target, Eppes."

Don nodded. "What say we research this place a little before we go busting in? I'd like to know what's behind door number two."

Tulip couldn't stand the suspense. "Am I in trouble?" he wanted to know. "Can I still take my citizenship exam?"

Don pulled a business card out of his pocket, scribbling something on the back. "Guy, you take that exam proudly. You've earned it." He stood up. "C'mon, Ian. We're finished with this gentleman." He led the way out.

Tulip looked at the card: Don Eppes, Special Agent, Federal Bureau of Investigation. On the back, Don had written: I heartily endorse this man for citizenship in the United States of America.

* * *

It was going to be a small group left behind, Charlie thought to himself, watching as the limousines carted away the unneeded geniuses. More than a dozen had packed their bags after a single day of cerebral effort, their contributions not needed for this project. A single day or two weeks, and the paycheck remained the same. They would be returning to their homes, still unaware of the exact location of the lodge. Most had been flown via private jet to a local airport, and would be restored to their homes via the same vehicle; it was only Charlie who had figured out exactly where they were. Even Bob DeNatale, the mechanical engineer who lived south of L.A. and had likewise been ferried in by limo, hadn't figured it out. Charlie wasn't about to enlighten them; there was no question but that it would upset his temporary employers. It wasn't worth the trouble.

Charlie wasn't certain if he envied his departing compatriots or not. Sure, it was flattering to have his project picked for further development by this AutoDyne corporation, but his Cognitive Emergence work was calling and there was a certain hypothesis that was wiggling itself to the forefront of his brain. Writing it down just wasn't good enough. Charlie really wanted to get back to his office and his own laptop to see if that mini hypothesis had a chance of making it into the final version.

On the other hand, this was important work. Supporting the troops overseas, designing a weapon that would take out enemy bombs without killing either American soldiers or innocent civilians was certainly valuable and would have a major impact on the war on terrorism. It was nothing to be cast aside lightly. Two weeks spent designing the tool in the presence of some of the most gifted minds of the century was an extremely small price to pay.

There were already contracts ready for Drs. Jeter and Whimsey, and Charlie realized that Tanvey had been busy setting up the new jobs overnight. That didn't surprise him—military research and development companies were noted for their ability to swiftly go after what they needed—but what did cause him to wonder was that Tanvey hadn't offered any additional inducements to the holdouts: Professors Husinger and McKenzie, as well as Charlie himself. The negotiations for continued services had been perfunctory and almost ham-handed, compared to what Charlie was used to. Who was this 'AutoDyne' company that Tanvey worked for? Don would know, and Charlie resolved to ask his brother once he got home.

Didn't really matter at the moment. Charlie was once again ready to work: he'd done his usual morning run, the same security man/bell hop trailing behind, and had joined the rest of his colleagues in a buffet breakfast that was far heavier than his usual slapdash gotta-get-moving early morning food fest. His morning jog had made up for it; the place was still beautiful, and the crisp mountain air always cleaned out his lungs from the Los Angeles smog that Charlie routinely inhaled. He'd been once again turned away from the longer route, the guard warning him of potential mud slides, but that didn't bother Charlie. The slope was beautiful.

The remaining five researchers met once more in the conference room, the same computers available for use. All five laptops had been hard-wired together so that each could easily transmit data back and forth as they worked to design the finished project. Charlie idly turned on his own, waiting for the innards to go through their electronic dance before being ready to work.

"This stuff is being recorded elsewhere," Dr. Jeter announced to the air.

Husinger looked up. "Yes?"

"Neat little program," she told them all. "Actually, I had a hand in designing it a few years ago. You slide it in, and it copies every keystroke and sends it to another computer somewhere. The CIA liked it, and I think a few other intelligence agencies are using it. Private industry wanted it, but I don't think they've been allowed to have it yet. At least, I didn't think so until now. I may be wrong."

"It suggests that this might be a cover for the military instead of a private tech company," Charlie said, thoughts flying. "I've never heard of AutoDyne. Anybody else?"

"Not me," McKenzie said.

Whimsey had, and said so. "They've done work for the military, so I'll assume that they have access to some military toys. It would only make sense." He paused. "No, wait, that was another company with a similar name. I think…I really can't remember names, and such. That doesn't change the point; if this company has done work for the military, they have a chance at accessing some of the better tech toys. I would think that they would get your program, Amelia, if they could demonstrate a reasonable need."

Amelia Jeter frowned. "You think? I don't. The military tends to be pretty tight with things like that. If you haven't designed it yourself, you're not likely to get it. At least, not in my experience."

"So what's going on?" Husinger asked, keeping his voice down. "Who are these 'AutoDyne' folks? Should we be asking a few more questions?"

"Wouldn't hurt," was McKenzie's opinion.

Dr. Jeter agreed. "I think I'm going to hold off signing any contract until I have a chance to do a little more checking," she decided. "Certainly with my attorney, if not with some of my Washington contacts. You, Whimsey?"

Whimsey offered a tight smile. "The job offer for my son-in-law is tempting, but not _that_ tempting. Indeed, more research is in order." He gestured at the laptop in front of him. "Of both types. Shall we continue?"

"I've got a better idea," Jeter jumped in. "We're working on some cutting edge stuff here. What say we put it under our own lock and key? I can do some encryption that will scramble their recordings." She smiled crookedly. "And I'll bet Professor Eppes here can build us a cipher that will prevent them from unlocking it, even if they do manage to decrypt it."

McKenzie nodded slowly. "Do that. Just to be on the safe side," he added. "Professor Eppes?"

"A five-sided cipher," Charlie told them. "It should be almost impossible to break. There'll be a public key, and we'll each of us have our own private key. Without all of us, the rest of the keys will be useless. That should protect this work as much as anything can." He grinned. "This won't take long. Everyone, think of a word that means something to you and none of the rest of us would know. I'll develop the individual keys, and then you can insert the trigger." He looked out the window at the bright morning sun shining through the trees. "This will keep us all safe."


	4. Written into the Contract

1415 West Hanover. Don looked up—and _up_—at the tall building.

Weren't buildings this tall supposed to be illegal in earthquake-prone Los Angeles? Don wondered just who had gotten paid off to allow this sort of thing to happen, or maybe the building had been built to sway under the forces of nature and snap back into position without dropping anything important onto anyone, important things like floors and entire office suites. Whatever; the building had been here for some time and had lived through more than one quake, so Don decided to put his fears to bed and concentrate on the task before him.

The man that Barry Goldwasser had met up with had gone here, and both Don and Ian were willing to bet that the purpose wasn't sight-seeing. For one thing, this was the business end of town. It wasn't Rodeo Drive, or any of the fancy places that charged an arm and a leg for a cup of coffee.

Ian too looked up at the several floors. "What do you want to bet that we'll find a military contractor among the tenants?" he offered. "Maybe even DarkSeas itself."

"Not gonna take that bet," Don replied. He pulled open the door to the building. "After you."

There were a lot of names on the tenant list, all of whom Don had never heard of. DarkSeas itself, however, hadn't made the list, and that was particularly disappointing. How where they going to figure out which office the suspect had gone to? Ask door to door? Don could just imagine how useful that was going to be. All a receptionist needed to say was, _sorry, never seen him before_, and there would be no way to distinguish the lie from the truth.

Well, that was what teams were good for. When there was a lot of work to be done, divvy it up among the team so that no one person ended up doing too much.

Fine in theory, but Don and Ian were on the premises and not particularly happy about leaving without answers. The team that would end up doing the work was comprised of two, neither of which wanted to spend the next hour or so digging out information. There was a method for dealing with that, too: delegation. Don dug out his cell and hit speed dial.

"Sinclair."

"David? Don. Listen, that class of rookies that Pignolia walked through this morning? They still on the premises?"

"Last I saw. You want 'em?"

"I want 'em, and I want 'em right now. Sit their asses in front of computers and have 'em look up the names that I'm about to give you. I'm looking for a connection to anything military. Oh, and better add 'technical' to that list. This grunt work, pure and simple, David."

"Let 'em get used to it," David responded. His telephonic voice went a bit quieter as he pulled the phone away from his face. "Yo, Colby. Get the rookies up here; Don's got a job for them."

While Colby located the rookie class and got them bedded down with computers, Don read off the names of the tenants to David. It took just over half an hour for the first results to come in, but it was well worth the wait.

There were only three potentials that Don and Ian felt deserved more personal attention, and there wasn't any one of them going by the name of DarkSeas, Inc. The others turned out to be legitimate businesses with no connection to either military or high tech companies—at least six were financial planners, behind on their rent. It's the economy, stupid!—and a fast check behind the scenes was able to rule them out for the first pass. If nothing panned out, then Don was willing to take a second look but for now…

"You want to split up?" Ian asked. "Cover more ground that way."

Don considered. "Better not. These are military dudes, and I don't relish the thought of pulling your ass out of a hail of gunfire from a pissed-off receptionist." He indicated the first name on their short list, a business that went by the brilliantly devised moniker of ABC, Ltd. "They're on the second floor. We can work our way up."

"After you." Ian pointedly held open the door to the moderately filthy stairwell, distaining to use the elevator for a single flight.

No one had bothered to stencil in 'ABC' onto the door leading into the rented office. Clearly it was too much work for a business that expected to be gone in three months or less.

Don pushed in the door and entered the suite, Ian close on his heels, and instantly felt uneasy. This was not a legitimate business. There was a desk, sure, and a girl sitting behind it chewing gum as though that was her avocation in life. There was a phone on the desk that believed that it could reach the outside world by means of the slender wire that connected it to the wall.

That was all. There were no pictures hung on the wall. There were no signs extolling the virtues of ABC, or any of the rest of the alphabet. There were no chairs, comfortable or otherwise, for waiting customers to sit upon. The sole decoration beyond that of the barely legal-aged receptionist, was a door that presumably led into the inner sanctum where business was conducted.

The girl looked up, and Don pegged her instantly: came to Hollywood to make her fame and fortune based solely on her good looks and talent. Okay, yeah, good looks she had, but there were literally thousands of girls who looked just as good in a three square mile radius. That left talent, and that left this chick to take a job where ever she could to pay the rent.

"You want something?"

Not welcoming, and just barely this side of challenging. This was doing nothing to resolve Don's sense of unease, and he could feel Ian tense up beside him. Don's holster felt snug against his ribs, and he welcomed the sensation. There would be a fifty-fifty chance of needing it in the next five minutes, and he could just bet that, after the fact, Charlie could turn that statistic into sixty-forty, or whatever.

Time to push the issue. Don pulled out his badge. "FBI. We'd like to ask you some questions."

Either the girl had the world's greatest acting talent—which Don truly doubted, or she wouldn't be here—or it was the real thing. She went stark white. "Uh…"

The gun grew that much heavier in Don's holster.

Ian put his hand down on the desk, in just the right spot to prevent her from reaching for the phone. "Talk."

"I…"

"You heard the man." Don ostentatiously put his badge away, making certain that it flashed gold once again in the dingy illumination of the overhead light. "What we do next depends on your cooperation."

No threat of arrest. Was it Don's fault that she broke in front of them? She was just a kid with a dream, in over her head in the Big Bad World of Hollywood. The tears leaked out, and it wasn't an act.

"He said it was okay, that it was all legal!" she wailed. "It was just a gig, to fill in time and get a little money 'cause my agent only got me one audition in _three whole_ weeks!" Sniffle. "He said it was just to answer the phone and take messages. That nobody would come in, and if they did to tell 'em to leave but nicely like I really was his secretary. He made me sign a contract!"

"Yeah?" Ian's attention was getting rapidly diverted to the door that separated them from the kid's boss. "What's he doing in there?"

"He's—"

The door swung open, and a skinny guy in black jeans and a tee glared out at them. "Jen, what the hell's going on out here—" He caught sight of Don and Ian. "Who the hell are you?" With a certain amount of fear in his voice.

Don pulled out his shield once more. "FBI. Mind telling me what you were doing in there?"

Ian had edged around so that he could peer past the man into the inner room. "Mind telling me what that telescope is doing in there?" he added. Another quick flicker of eyes. "Eppes, this place looks out over the Embassy Hotel, across the street."

Don heard the sub-text very clearly from the sniper: a perfect nest to set up a single shot. Ian would know; he'd set up many such himself.

The man was made of sterner stuff than his receptionist. "You got a warrant?" he challenged. "I got a perfect legal right to do whatever I want in here. You can't come in here and bust the place up."

Don looked mildly over at Ian. "I haven't seen anything getting busted," he said. "You, Special Agent Edgerton?"

"Not me, Special Agent Eppes," Ian replied. "I believe that the door to the office was unlocked, consistent with fire code regulations. All very much in order."

"But we do have the legal right to ask for identification, don't we, Special Agent Edgerton?"

"We do, indeed, Special Agent Eppes. Especially considering that we have already identified ourselves as duly sworn law officers, attached to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. And that we are here in the performance of our duties."

Don turned back to the man, mildness giving way to steel. "You heard him. Identification?" He held out his hand.

The man almost refused, but something in the demeanor of the two FBI agents convinced him, because he reached for his pocket.

"Slowly!" Ian barked, nerves on edge.

The man halted, and then, with a sardonic lift to his eyebrows, took two fingers to slide his wallet out of his pocket. "You want I should open it?"

"You do that," Don told him. "Let's see some ID."

There were two pieces that told Don and Ian what they needed to know: a California driver's license, stating that one John LaGrange was legally permitted to operate a motor vehicle by the California Department of Motor Vehicles, and the other a laminated card stating that Mr. LaGrange held a license as a private investigator.

Don relaxed; this explained why there was no public record of ABC, Ltd. This was a front for something tawdry but not, perforce, illegal. Still, a little more explanation was in order, and he asked for it.

LaGrange gestured at the telescope in the other room. The thing was large and bulky, and dented in two places. "What does it look like I'm doing? We got a gig watching a husband with the hots for another woman, and his wife is paying us big bucks to find out who." He sniggered. "Surprise, surprise. Not only is Mr. Big Shot stepping out on his old lady, but he's dancing with _three_ other broads and not one of 'em knows about the other." He smirked. "Gonna be real fun to see what gets written about this one in the tabloids. I'm thinking that I can make a few bucks on the side selling a few racy pictures. Whadda you guys think?"

Don thought that perhaps the FBI would be best served by declining to answer that question. Ian agreed.

* * *

There was very little discussion around the conference table where all five researchers found themselves. There didn't need to be; the five laptops were hard-wired to each other, cables stretching from one to the other in a high-tech version of a wreath with the laptops as the flowers decorating the overlarge circle. Every keystroke entered by each of the experts was observed and incorporated by the other four into the overall design of the project.

Not so their employers; Charlie knew that for a fact. He wouldn't have been able to create an encryption program with the same effortless elegance as Dr. Jeter, but he was still able to follow her actions and appreciate the skill with which she prevented anyone outside of the five from being able to view the work being done. There was the same sort of appreciation for Charlie's own contribution: each of the five now had their own cipher key. Unless all five were present to 'unlock' the code, no one would be able to access the project design.

The work was protected, and so were the researchers. There was something very odd going on, something that each of the researchers was at a loss to explain. This project had initially appeared to be similar to projects that the five had been involved with in the past: a secret work site—despite the fact that Charlie had deciphered the location before ever arriving—and a brain-storming session, followed by the initial winnowing down of the ideas into something approaching practical.

There the similarity stopped. Job offers had been tendered, at salaries far exceeding what academia could offer, and Charlie and the others were used to those. What none of them had been prepared for was the nonchalance with which those offers had been extended. It was almost as if this AutoDyne company didn't really care whether or not their temporary employees took the job, which was odd because replacing some of the minds in this room would be more than a little challenging. Didn't AutoDyne understand that? Researchers of this caliber were not a dime a dozen.

More to the point: the work was being _much_ more closely observed than Charlie or the others had ever experienced. Charlie had worked under highly regulated circumstances before; there was a place on his curriculum vitae that simply said 'National Security Agency' and then stopped. Anyone who knew anything was aware that his work there was so classified that asking about it would be considered a breach of security, and each of the other four could point to similar items on their own resumes.

This was different. This wasn't protecting data from outsiders, this was siphoning it off as soon as it was disgorged from the minds of the experts, and it was totally out of the ordinary. It was raising the hackles of every person there.

Nevertheless, this was a different company. None of them had worked for AutoDyne, and, to be reasonable, this particular company might have different security specifications.

More of those security specifications had just arrived. Whimsey glanced out through the window of the conference room. "My word. How many are there?"

The others looked up. Three cars worth of men in fatigues carrying duffels and guns eased to a quiet stop and disgorged the troops.

"Twelve." Which seemed like more than enough to Charlie, especially since they were carrying enough weaponry to outfit a small rebellion. "What's all this about?"

"Beats me." Jeter got up from her seat and went to the window. "Anybody else getting the heebie-jeebies over this?"

"I've _been_ getting the heebie-jeebies over this," Husinger informed her testily. "The question is: what shall we do about it?"

McKenzie gestured at the five laptops, all hard-wired together. "I suspect that we're doing the best that we can, under the circumstances. Perhaps this is simply an excess of zeal, or perhaps there really is some danger out there that AutoDyne wants to protect us from. In any event, we've put our work under the best level of security that we can, even from our employers."

Whimsey nodded. "Actually, it's my opinion that we can have a better than rough draft completed by morning, if we work on this into the night. I, for one, would appreciate leaving this place first thing in the morning. Nice as it is," he added wistfully. "I wouldn't mind taking a holiday here, if I knew where it was. I suspect the amenities, under normal circumstances, would be quite pleasant." He smiled at his colleagues. "What say we hammer this thing out, present it to our temporary masters, and be done with this?"

Husinger nodded thoughtfully. "This is a weapon, but it's designed to be a defensive weapon. Using it offensively would be cost-prohibitive as well as ineffective, and that assuages my ethical concerns over weapons design. I agree, Whimsey. McKenzie?"

McKenzie sighed. "So much for a hefty pay raise. I'm in."

"Me, too," Jeter echoed. She turned to Charlie. "Professor Eppes?"

"Count me in," Charlie told them. He eyed them cautiously; all but Dr. Jeter possessed either gray or balding hair or both, and he suspected that Dr. Jeter's short brown locks owed more to chemistry than genes. "Are you all certain that you want to pull an all-nighter? Most of us put those aside years ago." Charlie wrestled down the admission that he himself still routinely stayed up all night, working on problems for the sheer joy of it.

Jeter smiled at him. "There's a reason I'm a computer geek, Dr. Eppes. I'm allergic to morning, which is why every class I teach starts after lunch. It's written into my contract."


	5. Hornet's Nest

This office, located on the third floor, took 'unremarkable' to an art form. The door was closed, and was clean and free from distinguishing scuff marks. There was a small number designating it as 342, and no name beyond that. There was no advertising on the outside of the door to suggest what type of business went on inside, and not one of the probies back at Headquarters had been able to come up with any sort of information whatsoever.

Which was why both Don and Ian considered it promising.

Don rapped on the door, sharing an uncomfortable glance with his temporary partner. Neither one was happy with the situation, but there wasn't any help for it. They were skating on thin ice, investigatively speaking. There had been a person of interest dropped off at this building, but they had no concrete evidence for anything more than that, and certainly nothing linking this particular office to a man that they didn't even have a name for. Neither of them could say for certain that the person of interest had been involved in the murder of the man that the FBI had found in a back alley. The FBI was fishing, plain and simple.

No response to Don's rap, although he could hear a couple of deep voices inside. Likely the men inside were in the back room, and unable to hear his knock. Next step: the door was unlocked. The handle turned easily in Ian's hand.

With an uneasy feeling, Don followed Ian into the outer office. The area was as plain as the door outside, with no distinguishing characteristics. It was as if someone had taken pains to remain unnoticeable. There were no pictures on the wall, no papers on the desk, and the desk itself had started life as knock-down particle board. The sole decoration on top of the desk was a phone with a cord reaching to the wall outlet. No, wait—there was a plain metal trashcan, sitting on the linoleum floor next to the desk.

There were three voices in the back room, all keeping the volume down to the point where neither Don nor Ian could tell what was being said. Ian raised his eyebrows, and Don could easily tell what the sniper was thinking: _if we announce that we're from the FBI, are they going to come out shooting?_

Only one way to find out. Actually, Don corrected himself, there was only one FBI-approved way to find out. He loosened his gun in its holster, ready to duck behind the sole piece of furniture in the room if it should become necessary.

"Hello," he called out. "Anybody home?" Which was a dumb thing to say since they could hear voices in the back, but it wasn't as likely to get his head shot off.

The deep voices stilled immediately. "Somebody out there?" Nervous, and suspicious.

Big moment time. Don took a deep breath, just as nervous as any of those within. "We're with the FBI," he called out, trying to sound non-threatening. "There's a guy in the area that we're looking for_." And we're willing to pretend that he didn't come in here if you don't pull out any guns. We'll be able to tell whether or not you know him just by looking at your faces._

One of the men walked out to see just exactly who has crossed their doorstep. "Can I help you?"

Don relaxed just a fraction, briefly pulling out his ID to establish his bonafides. _No guns, no bullets_. "We're looking for this guy. You seen him in the building?"

The man scanned the photo that Don proffered, well aware that both Don and Ian were watching his every move. "No. Can't say that I have. What's he done?"

"Just a person of interest," Ian said smoothly. "How 'bout the guys in back? They ever see him?"

"Let's find out. Hey, Sean, come out here," he called. "We got some Feds here, got some questions for us."

Neither man matched the face in Ian's photo. None had the same chestnut hair, the smooth features that would easily blend in with the crowd. Both of the men in the office were as tall as Ian, and both carried themselves with the easy movements that proclaimed that they worked out regularly—and that they conducted business in places not even as nice as this back hole of an office.

Sean too looked up at Don and Ian, and shook his head. "Sorry I can't help you. Never saw this guy in my life," he said.

_Lie_. Don knew it as well as he knew the back of his hand.

Just like he knew that there was a third man in the office, still in the back room, one that had a decent chance of holding something large and metal and cylindrical in his hands, ready to come out and put a couple of rounds into a couple of undeserving FBI field agents if it sounded as though Don and Ian were getting too close to whatever they were trying to hide.

Getting themselves shot up was not the best way to close a case. Don accepted the falsehood with grace. He pulled out a business card. "If you see him around, you call me, okay?"

The unnamed man accepted the small piece of cardstock. "Will do." He glanced at the writing. "Special Agent Don Eppes."

"That's me." _And I'm gonna take a look under my car for the next few days, see if somebody stuck a bomb under there. Just to be on the safe side, you understand._

Ian couldn't leave it alone. He looked around the outer office, as if noticing the lack of amenities. "You guys just moving in?"

Sean nodded. "And temporary."

"Mind me asking what business you folks are in?"

The unnamed man stayed cool. "Security. Our clients like to stay under the radar, and so do we." It was an invitation to drop the subject.

Ian didn't accept the invitation. "Your company got a name?"

"Not yet. We're still in the process of incorporating. We'll let you know when we do," the unnamed man told him. _And that will be when you see a squadron of pigs flying in tight formation over Rodeo Drive, wearing rhinestone studded flight helmets._

There were no hands shaken, just a simple leave-taking. Both Don and Ian kept it quiet until they reached the lobby.

Ian led the way out of the elevator, stone-faced. "That was close."

Don agreed. "Who were they? You recognize them?"

"I don't think they were legit," Ian mused. "They had the look of mercenaries. You think?"

"Yeah, I do." They had that appearance, Don thought. Well-muscled, in shape—and poised for danger. They were men who were used to coping with unstable conditions, men who reveled in uncertainty and came out with their skins intact. "I think we just found the local DarkSeas, Inc., recruiting office, and I think we rattled their cage. What do you think they'll do now?"

"Good question, Eppes. You got a good answer?"

"I got a solution."

"I'm all ears."

Don pulled out his cell phone. "David? It's me. Listen, we may have stumbled onto a hornet's nest with that office 342. They've made me and Ian, so I want you and Colby to make yourselves comfortable in a car here, and see what goes down. I want to know where these guys go, what they do, now that they know that something's up."

* * *

"Hey!" Dr. Jeter objected.

Since no one had said a word, the noise sparked loudly in the silence. The other four looked up, concerned.

"Dr. Jeter—"

"It's slowing down." She indicated the laptop in front of her. "Mine's freezing up. Anyone else's?"

"Mine," Charlie responded, tapping a few more keys in annoyance. "It just started." He hit a few more keys, tapping the 'enter' key to try to force the machine to behave. "What a time for this to happen. I didn't even get the algorithm for the cobalt detection parameters entered."

"No…" Husinger moaned. "That lovely equation for object avoidance? Gone, every last symbol. Do you know how long it will take me to reconfigure it?"

"We might as well take a break," was Whimsey's grim contribution. "Something has obviously caused our little circle to freeze, and until someone figures out what it is, we're stuck. Power, perhaps? A surge? This is, after all, a secluded spot. One would expect variations in the power supply."

McKenzie patted his ample stomach. "Perhaps we should request that they send in some food? It's getting late. We can pick up where we left off after they fix whatever the problem is."

"You do that," Jeter told him, a thoughtful expression on her face.

Charlie picked up on it. "Amelia?"

She shook her head. "Bring me a sandwich, Charlie. I think I'll do a bit of digging, see if I can tell where the bug is."

_Definitely_ something going on. Charlie didn't need Don's powers of observation to tell that.

Since Amelia Jeter's area of expertise was computer science, Charlie could make a good guess: the freezing of the computers wasn't accidental. It was designed to look like it, and every one of the five had experienced more than their share of freezes trying to use campus and home facilities, but this small group of researchers contained one of the top minds of the world in computer technology. Charlie was more than willing to grant that the woman could pick up computer clues from the wavering of a screen.

He tried to appear nonchalant. "Can I give you a hand?"

She stared at him for a long moment. Calculations whizzed through her gray matter as fast as they did through Charlie's. "Yes. Thank you. That would be helpful."

Uh-oh.

Charlie turned to the other three. "Have them put aside a couple of sandwiches for both of us," he said, so calmly that he awed even himself. _Wish I could do this well when I'm bluffing Dad at poker_. "Amelia and I should have a handle on this in an hour or so, and then we can get back to work."

"And if you can't?" Husinger asked.

Charlie shrugged. "Then we hit the sack for the night, and start again in the morning. After all, we don't have to finish it tonight."

Whimsey nodded. "Quite so. Come along, chaps, and let's leave these two to their work. I believe I overheard one of the fellows that came in—you remember, the ones with all the hardware—talk about the supply trucks bringing in some rather fine steaks. I've been meaning to try that French cabernet, and that would go quite well, I suspect." His voice trailed off as he led the other two away.

"Tell 'em I need a screwdriver," Jeter called after them.

"A screwdriver?" Charlie moved in closer, so that he could lower his voice. "Amelia?"

"A moment, Charlie." She bent her head over the keyboard, tapping in commands faster than Charlie could manage, trying to get the machine to respond. The difference between a mathematician and a computer scientist… "Aha." Barely vocalized.

"Aha?"

"Just as I suspected." In a harsh whisper, one that couldn't be overheard. "They're definitely using my program, the one that I developed a few years ago for the military. They've souped it up some, but that's only to be expected. It _was_ a few years ago," she muttered. "Things move fast in this field."

"What does this mean?" There was a line of reasoning that was escaping Charlie.

"It means that this AutoDyne place is a military contractor and, since none of us has heard of it, probably a dummy corporation."

"We knew that," Charlie said under his breath. "That guy Tanvey told us so."

She spared him a glance. "Yeah, but how many companies have treated our work like this? They're being really cagey, Charlie. They're trying to fool us into thinking that they're not watching every move we make on this project." She jerked her thumb at the laptop in front of her. "Look at the cables that connect each of the five laptops to each other. We're all hard-wired to each other."

"Right. We know that. Shareware. Makes it easier to work on the same project."

"Now look at the power cables."

Charlie did. There was a power strip in the center of the conference table, that sprouted thick cables leading to each of the five laptops that had frozen. Even now the five screens had a line drawing of the cylindrical object that the researchers were working on. There were cables that connected each laptop in a circle, to share data, and then there was a power cord that led directly to the power strip. And then there was another, more slender, cable that ran from each laptop toward the power strip and disappeared down the hole in the center of the conference table along with the massive cable that hooked the power strip to some outlet in the floor.

Charlie looked again. That slender cable didn't have any purpose. It wasn't needed to hook laptop A to laptop B. What was it there for—?

Oh. Charlie understood what Dr. Jeter was carefully not saying out loud. There was an extra data cable, and that extra cable was very likely hooked up to another computer that was recording every keystroke that the five researchers made.

Except that it wasn't. There were two impediments to AutoDyne's plan: Dr. Jeter's encryption program and Dr. Eppes's cipher on top of that. One of those would be hard enough to get through, but two?

No wonder their employers 'froze' the laptops.

Charlie exchanged an unhappy look with his fellow researcher.

_How do we get out of this one?_


	6. I'd Like to Know That Myself

Colby spoke into his phone. "Don, there is definitely a lot of movement around office 342. You and Ian stirred something up."

"Good," Don grunted. "Mind telling me what it is?" He leaned back in his chair, staring at the computer screen in his cubicle back at Headquarters, feeling more than seeing Ian peering over his shoulder.

"Would if I could, Don." Colby's voice sounded tinny over the airwaves. "You gettin' anything on your end?"

"_Oh_, yeah," Don said softly. He grinned without humor, knowing the attitude would go arrowing across the miles. "We ran Ian's camera photo through Facial Recognition, and we came up with one Reginald Clipperman, last known address in Santa Monica. That was three years ago. We're going to head out there in another minute, Ian and me."

"Don't bother." Colby cut him off.

"Colby?"

"He just exited the building, Don. He's getting into a limo, along with a bunch of other guys that make you and me look like the ninety pound weakling on the beach, getting sand pushed in our faces."

Colby was right; this did sound big. Don turned away from the phone, though he kept the line open. "Ian, I need the book on this Clipperman, and I need it _now_." He put his face to the phone once more. "They carrying anything that looks like a shipment of drugs?"

He heard murmuring in the back, Colby consulting with David. "Nope. Just a few duffel bags. Bunch of long bags that look like rifles. I think we got ourselves a nest of mercenaries, Don. This is a hunting expedition."

"A damn scary hunting expedition. What are they hunting?"

"Beats me. But there are a lot of 'em, Don. I'm counting almost a dozen."

"They're all getting into the same limo?"

"Get real. They don't all fit. Two limo's, Don."

"Give me the license plates."

There was a pause while Colby put the glasses to his eyes.

David's voice came onto the cell, and Don surmised that Colby had passed the thing to his partner. "Colby can't see the first set of plates; they're blocked by the second limo. Second limo: California plates, five, Bravo, Bravo, Larry, four, niner, foxtrot. Color: black. No dents or distinguishing marks, no advertising. Don, we're getting photos of the guys getting into the limo's, both vehicles."

"Good. We can run them through Facial Recognition as well. Send 'em through, and we'll pick 'em up at this end. Follow those limo's, but don't challenge them. They're twelve, and there's only the two of you."

"Roger that." There was no sarcasm in that reply, only relief.

Ian tapped Don on the shoulder. "Positive match on the plates. Limo's registered to DarkSeas, Inc."

Yes! Connection found. "You hear that, David? The limo belongs to DarkSeas."

David knew what that meant as well as Don. "We've got our link to Goldwasser. If you want us to pull these guys over, Don, I'm going to suggest that we call in the LAPD SWAT as back up—"

"Negative on pulling them over, David," Don told him. "Follow them, but do not engage. I want to see where they're going, now that they know that we're on to them. They're running; let's see where their den is." Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ian nod approvingly. "I'm going to put Ian back on the line, and I'll arrange for some additional vehicles to help trail these guys. Traffic is pretty bad this time of day," he mused, more to keep the chatter over the line going than to share information, "so we should have plenty of time to get some unmarked cars moving. You heading north?"

"Toward the entrance to the Santa Monica," David corrected.

"No big deal. That thing is a parking lot. I'll have two cars waiting for when it splits toward Pomona and Santa Ana. You call in which route they take, and I'll have the next car pick them up."

"Got it."

"Eppes." Ian needed more attention. "I heard back from the NSA, about the corpse."

"Yeah?" Don's attention was caught, though his fingers kept dialing to the watch commander, to arrange for back up for his team on the road. "What did they have to say for themselves? They got any more details for us that they're will to release?"

"You might say that. They say they never picked up the body, never told us that Goldwasser was theirs."

"What?" That _deserved_ more attention. "Then who the hell—"

"Picked up the body?" Ian tightened his lips. "I'd really like to know that myself."

Quick decision time. "Go down to the morgue," Don ordered. "Start the investigation; I'll join you as soon as I arrange for more vehicles to trail that limo."

"On it." Ian stretched his long legs, striding out of Don's cubicle. Don turned back to the phone and dialed in a new extension. "Feretti? Listen, I need like about four unmarked cars with agents. This may be big, and I don't want anyone getting hurt."

* * *

"Took the pair of you long enough," Whimsey complained mildly. "Lovely meal they offered us. Here, we brought you each a plate."

"Thanks." Charlie accepted the dish, juggling the tall wine glass that accompanied it. "Professor Jeter was able to get everything working again. We can proceed as soon as the rest of you are ready." He set the plate down beside the laptop that had been designated for his use, picking up his fork and spearing something green and healthy-looking. He had a feeling that it was going to be a long night, and stoking up in preparation would be a good thing. The wine—an amber-hued white—he set aside.

"Good," Husinger rumbled. "What was the problem?"

Jeter snorted. "Turned out to be a cable that came loose. Took me long enough to find it, and I'm still not sure that it was really the problem. But the local network is working again, and we can get started once more. Everyone hit the keyboards," she instructed.

Charlie waited. This was going to be the turning point.

The first line came across the screen, from Professor Jeter:

_Don't say anything, just read. The computers were definitely compromised. Everything we put down has been copied. I have now detached that feature from each of our computers, and I've set up a dummy LAN to feed false data to our 'employers'._

There were three stiffened spines, and each cast a suspicious glance first toward Professor Jeter, and then to Charlie himself. Charlie shrugged, returning an unhappy smile.

McKenzie: _are you certain?_

Jeter: _damn certain. I wrote the program that they're using, and I know the back doors._

McKenzie: _no, I mean are you certain that they can't read what we're writing now?_

Jeter. _Yes. They have someone who knows my program, but it will take her some time to get through the actual encryption._

Whimsey: _you know who it is?_

Jeter: _pretty sure_.

Husinger: _more to the point, what do we do now? Are we in danger? This is damned unusual for a corporation to behave this way. I don't think that they're legitimate._

Charlie: _we need to play along, give them what they want. Once we escape, we can let the authorities know what has been going on_. *Pause* _Someone say something out loud, so that they think we're working as we did before._

"I think we're on track," Professor Husinger responded, keeping his tone mild. "Good work, Amelia. You've got us up and running again."

"My pleasure, Walter."

Charlie hit the keyboard again: _Everyone create a false image of the weapon we designed, something that looks good but actually won't do the job_.

McKenzie: _won't they want to look at it before they let us leave?_

Whimsey: _there's no one here that can understand to that level, Robert_. _We should be able to fool them._

Husinger: _I think McKenzie has a point. If they've gone to this much trouble to have us do the work, they're certainly not going to let us go until they're reasonably certain that they have what they want_.

Charlie had a flash of inspiration. "Drat. I think the stuff that I did got erased during the computer freeze. I'm going to have to start over again. Anybody else?"

Dramatic sigh from Whimsey. "Me, too, old chap. What a nuisance, re-doing all that work! At least it should go faster this time." _Good diversion_, he wrote onto the computer screen so that all could see it. _Let them think that they caused the problem, so that they don't blame us._

McKenzie: _how long before they get into your encryption program, Amelia?_

Jeter: _if it's the bitch that I think it is, she'll crack it before morning_._ She's probably been working with something similar for six months or more. It gives us some breathing room, but not much._

Husinger: _we still have Eppes's cipher. How much more leeway does that give us, Charles?_

Charlie hesitated before putting his fingers to the keyboard: _two or three weeks, if that's the route they take. Possibly more. I doubt they have anyone on staff with this sort of expertise. Cryptologists tend to get snapped up by their governments pretty quick._

Three sets of shoulders relaxed. Three weeks was a long time, and the researchers had been told by AutoDyne that they would be returned within two. Failure to comply would mean that the deception would be out in the open.

Husinger was more cautious: _what other route could they take, Charles?_

More hesitation. How should he put this? Would they panic? None of the other four, Charlie knew, had had quite the close contact with the intelligence community that Charlie himself had. Their research had all been very straightforward: give the military the tech toys that they wanted. None of them had ever received a memo saying, sorry but the person sending the code that you've been deciphering is no longer in communication with us. Charlie had only once asked what that meant, and he hadn't liked the answer:

Dead.

Charlie took one more moment to compose his answer and type it onto the keyboard: _they could try to decipher the five-sided key that I devised. It wouldn't be terribly hard, but with five variables it would take a long time, which is why I thought the two to three weeks would be realistic. The other route they could use would be to ask us, each one of us, for our individual key. They could ask us with a lot of arm twisting._

He broke the silence. "Anybody think I ought to try putting in the Rosewood Asymptotes this time? I know we argued against it, but I'd like to try it on this go around."

They had argued against it because it wouldn't work. Charlie knew that, knew that it was a ridiculous waste of time given the line of research that McKenzie and Husinger were pursuing. Charlie only said it aloud so that it would sound as though the researchers had resumed their work, and it would give his colleagues a moment to let the unpleasant realities sink in.

Husinger played along. "Yes, I think that might be a fine approach, Charles. See where it leads us." He put his next communication across the computer screen: _I am no hero. I am under no illusion that I could withstand the pressure that they could bring to bear. I am sorry._

Jeter typed quickly. _They need the keys from each of us. If even one of us holds out, they're sunk._

Charlie looked around the room, well aware that each of the others was doing the same thing. Husinger, McKenzie, and Whimsey were all in their seventies. Professor Jeter was younger—in her fifties, Charlie thought—but overweight. Could _any_ of them 'hold out' against whatever inducements were brought to bear? Could he? This was stuff that his brother Don came up against, not a bunch of mild-mannered scientists.

Charlie tried to think. What would Don do in a situation like this? Easy; call for back up. What if he couldn't call?

Uh…

Why hadn't he ever held this conversation with Don before this? Come to think of it, there were a lot of conversations that he'd never held with his brother. Things like, how'd you like growing up with Dad and not Mom? How come you went into the FBI? How come you didn't go to law school? You were smart enough. Was it because you didn't want to go the academic route and be like me? How come you didn't call me when you were in New Mexico? I could have given you a lot of help, using pursuit algorithms. Why haven't you gotten married yet?

Charlie ran out of conversational gambits with which to chastise his brother, knowing that the really important one also wasn't going to be answered: what the hell do I do now?

Husinger, ever practical, put his thoughts onto the screen. _For now, we pretend that we don't suspect._

* * *

It didn't take long for Ian to get back with the answers from the morgue downstairs. He plopped his backside onto Don's desk, looking down on the team leader.

"False identification," he announced. "Whoever it was flashed some IDs that looked like NSA, scribbled something illegible on the FBI logs, and took off with the body."

Don glowered. "How the hell did our guys not look twice at the ID? We're the FBI, for christ's sake!"

Ian shrugged, equally as unhappy. "You can't blame 'em, Don. We told them that NSA was coming for the body. They didn't have any reason to question what was going on."

Don hunched back in his chair. "Our guys get anything from it before they took it from us?"

"Your ME thinks that the cause of death really was the double tap to the back of the skull," Ian told him. "He never got a chance to do the autopsy. No wallet, no identification. It was when you ran the prints that the name—and the fake NSA guys—popped up."

Don felt his blood run cold. "That says that whoever it was, has access to federal databases. CIA?"

"Maybe. Maybe not?"

"Yeah?" Don cocked his head to look at the sniper. "That sounds like you got something."

"Actually, it sounds more like I got nothing," Ian retorted. "I started running things back to Washington, to my direct report up. I got told to back off."

"So?"

"So, I talked to my _other_ direct report up. I got told to nose around. And not get caught," Ian added.

"Damn uncomfortable having two bosses," Don observed.

"You're telling me. I talked to a third boss, and she's still trying to figure out what to tell me and why the first two said what they said." Ian indicated the computer screen that was lit up with a map of the Los Angeles road system. "Where is the limo now?"

"Going nowhere fast," Don replied. He pointed to a red dot on the map that was being followed at a discrete distance by a green dot. Two more dots were on the Santa Ana freeway and the Pomona, just waiting for the red dot to get moving on the faster Santa Monica and then decide whether to pursue a northeast or a southeast route. "Traffic's a bitch today."

"Sorry to hear that." Ian wasn't sorry in the least. It gave the FBI more time to get additional vehicles into position. "They spot your two?"

"If they did, they're not showing it," Don said. "So far, we think they're okay. Traffic is moving so slowly that it gives David and Colby an excuse for eyes on."

"So you're sitting here?" Ian raised his eyebrows.

Small smile. "Actually, I was waiting for you."

Ian snorted. "You're not waiting any more, Eppes. It's time to haul ass. Which route do you think they'll take?"


	7. Empty Space in the Brain

Charlie looked out through the window, wondering what he should be doing. The others were still working on the mock up of The Weapon, as they had started to call it. Charlie's part was already completed; it was fairly easy for him to plug in a number of equations that would invoke either infinity or a loop that would bring the interested party back to square one when they tried to look at the mock up of The Weapon. Neither of those situations would fool the AutoDyne people forever, but unless they got someone like Marshall Penfield to look at it, the ruse would buy at least a week's worth of time. Charlie had done his part.

That, unfortunately, left him with far too much empty space in his brain that was spinning around contemplating the future.

It didn't look good.

They all had thought that they were being so clever, hiding their work until they were certain that this AutoDyne group was who they said they were.

It made Charlie wonder about why he'd taken this gig. He didn't need the money; there were always private industry jobs to be had, in between semesters. No, he'd accepted this because he'd thought that it would help the military cut down on civilian casualties. The people presenting the proposal to him—he remembered them clearly, a man and a woman, visiting him in his office early one morning—had brought letters of recommendation from people he knew. Forged? Probably, Charlie thought bitterly to himself. If he'd been smart, then he would have called up those friends in Washington just to be certain. He sighed. The signatures on the letters looked correct. Whoever these AutoDyne people were, they were spending a lot of money on getting the scene right. Charlie didn't doubt that they done the same for each of the other researchers that they'd brought in. How many had there been initially? Two dozen? That was a lot of upfront effort. With that much forethought, they'd probably figured out a way to divert any phone calls that Charlie or anyone else had tried. That, or only those who'd been stupid enough not to call those friends were the ones who had accepted the Autodyne offer.

Water under the bridge, as the saying went. What should they do now? Who _was_ this AutoDyne group, and what would be the consequences if they got hold of the plans that Charlie and the others were designing? Not good; Charlie would bet money on that. Anyone who would forge official signatures didn't have the world's best interests in mind.

All of which meant that something needed to be done. Amelia Jeter had said that her computer diversion wouldn't hold out for long, and Charlie saw no reason to doubt her—in fact, there was every reason to believe that it was the truth. That left Charlie's five-sided cipher to hold off the enemy, and the only way that it could last was if at least one researcher didn't give in.

It was protection, of a sort. If five keys were needed to unlock the program, then AutoDyne wouldn't dare kill Charlie or any of his fellow researchers—until after they had extracted the key. Just how far would AutoDyne go? Charlie found that he really didn't want to think about it. Situations like this were Don's field of expertise, not his.

He looked out the window once more. The sun had descended swiftly behind the mountain, leaving the scenery coated in darkness. The landscape wasn't empty, however; here and there Charlie could spot the signs of a passing guard. One puffed on a cigarette, and the flame flared brightly against the night before simmering down into an imitation of a firefly. The guard had a large gun slung across his back so that he could maneuver the cigarette to his lips, but Charlie had no doubt that the rifle could be swung around and aimed at whatever took the guard's fancy in less time than it took for the cigarette to be dropped to the forest floor.

Five keys, and all five had to present in order to unlock the program. Remove one, and the other four were useless until the fifth was retrieved. Charlie toyed around with ideas, discarding each one as untenable.

The answer was obvious: one of the five had to be unreachable. If one of them should die…Charlie shied away from that idea. Like Professor Husinger, he was no hero and he didn't think that any of the others would relish the thought of a noble suicide. Nope; come up with a better idea, Eppes.

One or more could hide. That was definitely better, although where to hide in this lodge? If they each went in a separate direction, perhaps one or more could find a spot to snuggle into.

Simply another delaying tactic. Could any one of them hide out for the entire two weeks of the project? For it would be that long before any of their relatives went looking for them and of those, Charlie suspected, only he himself owned a relative who could claim expertise in tracking someone. All of the rest of the various family members would go to their local police, who _might_ contact the FBI if they decided that they had nothing better to do, and things would slow down from there.

Nevertheless, someone had to try something. Charlie entered the thought onto the silent computer screen.

Four sets of shoulders jerked, and four heads sheepishly lifted to stare at Charlie.

Jeter was the first to give in. She nodded slowly, accepting the inevitable: someone, or preferably all of them, needed to disappear for as long as it took.

Whimsey: _can't one of us simply pretend to be ill? Cart McKenzie here off to the nearest hospital for a cup of tea and sympathy_.

_For two whole weeks?_ Charlie hated injecting that dose of reality, and he could just imagine the skeptical looks that would arise should one of the researchers try that plan. _Hi. I'm Professor Charles Eppes, noted researcher, and I've been kidnapped by an Evil Corporation bent on World Domination_. It would take all of five minutes to call for a psychiatrist and a padded cell. In fact, these AutoDyne people were so good that they'd probably manage to sneak one of their own in as the psychiatrist and haul the undeserving researcher back to this lodge. No good. They needed to think of something else.

Variables. He needed to statistically determine the best researcher who had the greatest chance of a successful removal from the immediate vicinity. Option one: find a miniscule hidey hole here in the lodge in which to huddle. Who was the smallest of the bunch and best equipped to squeeze into a tiny spot? Not Whimsey or McKenzie. Whimsey was six feet of gray-haired befuddlement and McKenzie sported a paunch that told of too many beers consumed in front of too many football games. Even Professor Jeter outweighed Charlie by at least fifty pounds of adipose tissue around her waistline. The smallest member of the group was Dr. Husinger, a man even shorter than Charlie and just as slender. Drawback: Charlie doubted that Walter Husinger could successfully get into such a hiding spot. The man walked with a pronounced limp that suggested that rapid travel was not a reality. That brought Charlie up as next in line.

Scratch that idea. If Charlie was going to hide, he was going to do it outside where he had a reasonable chance of finding some nuts and berries on the bushes outside. In fact, while he was at it he could hoof it down the road to the next available spot with a phone and call Don.

Okay, option two: run away. Who was the best candidate for that? Again, Whimsey, McKenzie, and Husinger could probably walk a mile in thirty minutes if pushed. Jeter would push back to forty five minutes.

Charlie routinely ran five miles every day before breakfast and then went in to work.

Why did it seem as though every option led to Charlie himself?

Charlie swallowed hard, accepting the inevitable. If they were going to remove one of the researchers from the group to prevent the cipher from being decoded, then it would have to be Charlie.

Not without help. Charlie now moved into the planning phase. However he accomplished this, it would have to be good. These AutoDyne people had already demonstrated that they were equally as clever at setting up plans, and Charlie would have to out-think them from the start.

At least it was something to occupy the empty place in his brain, he decided.

The others, freed from the responsibility, drifted back to the much easier concept of faking The Weapon.

* * *

Don's cell trilled at him just he was dumping his ass onto the driver's seat in the Suburban. He pulled in out, and went cold: Colby's name was flashing in the window. "Eppes."

"Don? News flash, Don. They didn't get onto the Santa Monica eastbound. They're heading west!"

"West? What the—?" That didn't make sense. West ended up in the bay. It would be a long run off a short pier. "What are they doing that for?"

"You're askin' me? Ask them!" Colby was just as upset. "Don't those dudes know that we've got more people waitin' to pick up their trail east of here? Dammit, Don, our guys are never gonna be able to turn around in time. We're gonna lose 'em!"

"You think you can pile on a little more sarcasm, there, Colby?" Don hauled at the wheel of the Suburban. "Listen, me and Ian are on our way there, not too far from the entrance ramp. How many exits have they gone through?"

"They're still pretty close in." Colby wasn't mollified. "Traffic is just as slow in this direction. We're inchin' up on La Cienega. You think you can pick us up there?"

"Not a chance. You think maybe they're gonna head up north on the San Diego? We can get onto the freeway and overtake you."

"Or south," Colby responded gloomily. "They could run for the border."

"Yeah. That's a good possibility." Don thought for a moment. "Okay, here's what we're going to do. Ian's going to get hold of Feretti and have one set of our guys start south toward the San Diego Freeway, and the other pair to see if they can cut in someplace north. If we time it right, we can catch 'em in a pincer maneuver." He didn't bother to mention that his gut was shrieking _North! North!_ There wasn't any rhyme or reason for his reaction, but Special Agent Don Eppes had to select one direction to go in, and north was what was coming to mind which was strange because south would be the way to cross the border and escape the FBI net. "I'm gonna see if I can move in on 'em right as they get onto the San Diego, and I'm betting that they're turning north."

Ian flashed him a glare. It didn't take much to figure out what the FBI sniper was thinking: _you'd better be right, Eppes_. _Doing a U-turn on the freeway during rush hour will be a bitch if you're not._

"I am," Don told him, refusing to admit how much doubt he was harboring.

"Good, because Feretti's sending both of the others south. Says they're so jammed in that they wouldn't be able to get to the San Diego north for at least a half hour. Our target will be long gone by then." Ian looked out through the clean glass window on his side. "Damn L.A. traffic."

"Not my fault," Don told him, concentrating on edging the Suburban past a little Prius. Looked like Charlie's car, and he wondered how his kid brother was doing. _Better than this, that's for sure. Probably eating good food, having fun making drawings on a white board that he's made them bring in._

"You do realize that south is the better bet, Eppes." Ian wasn't going to let it go. "We upset them something fierce, and they're taking a hike across the border."

"Maybe." Don concentrated on putting the Suburban ahead of a little flashy two-seater who didn't want to get the paint to his chick-magnet scratched. _At least those guys have a couple of big ass limo's to move through traffic. They're gonna be slowed up even more than me with those boats._ "Hey, if I'm wrong, then you've got two unmarked cars moving in that direction to trail our suspects."

"Yeah, but _I_ want to be the one that pulls them over." Ian put the cell phone on speaker so that they could both listen and speak and, from the sounds of it, Colby had done the same thing for David.

Colby's voice could be heard, tinny over the airwaves. "Don, they've just muscled their way over to the entrance ramp. Don, you were right; they're heading north. How the hell did you know?"

Don chuckled nervously. The butterflies in his gut put down their exacto knives and settled in for the ride. "Experience, Colby. And smarts." _Lie, but it would do to ease the tension._

Colby wasn't fooled. "So what are you gonna do for your next trick, Don? Pull a mercenary out of your hat?"

"You wish. Ian, call Feretti back. Have our people head north. They'll be pretty far back, but they can ease up slowly and take over the tail when we need 'em to." He raised his voice, to be heard. "Colby, we're just getting onto the freeway. We should be coming up on your position in about five. Uh, make that ten. Maybe twenty; damn, this traffic is tight," he complained. "There an accident somewhere?"

"Yeah." Colby broke in with the answer. "The accident's right here, Don, and dammit, they're getting past it. They're speeding up! Don, we're losing 'em!"

"No, we're not!" That was David, and both Don and Ian could hear honking in the background.

Don smiled grimly to himself. David had just performed some marginally legal move to get past the accident, and Don wasn't about to say which side of the margin it would come down on. What the hell; this was L.A. People did crazy things with their cars every day and twice on Sundays. The maneuver might attract the attention of the suspects in the limos, but then again it might not.

"They're making good time," Colby reported. "We're speeding up, too."

That wasn't so good. It meant that it would be harder to get another vehicle in place to take over the tail, more chances for David and Colby to be spotted.

"Where's the pair of unmarked cars?" he asked.

Ian consulted someone on the other end. "Twenty behind us," he reported. "Back roads?"

"Just as congested." Don knew that for a fact. "Colby, how fast are you moving?"

"Top speed, Don. We're about four cars back, staying with traffic."

"Don't lose them." It would take a miracle to catch the two limos if that should happen. Don came to a decision. "Ian, there's a bubble in the back seat. Stick it up top; I'm hitting the sirens."

"You got a lot of crap back there," Ian complained as he twisted around to root through the paraphernalia. "You live in your car?"

"Yeah, and most of that crap has saved my ass at one time or another." Don wasn't about to apologize. "You gonna say you don't do the same, Ian?"

"No, I don't," Ian retorted with good humor. "All of my crap fits into my duffel."

The siren got Don and Ian past the accident that had slowed traffic to a crawl, Don tooling the Suburban along the concrete edges of the freeway and skirting the shards of plastic that had previously been a very expensive car. Don spared a glance for the previous occupants of the car: one was being loaded onto an ambulance, and another getting questioned by LAPD. Good; no casualties that he could see. People would grouse over how easily cars today would crunch in a fender-bender, but that crunching saved lives. Don would take that any day of the week.

Ian got back on the phone as soon as the siren was off and he could hear. "Granger? Where are you?"

"Still headin' north. We're just about out of the 'burbs and into the canyons."

"Where the hell are they going?" Ian asked rhetorically. "If they're planning to run for the Canadian border, there are better ways to get there."

"They spot you yet?" Don asked, pitching his voice so that it could be heard across the speaker.

"I don't think so, but it's gonna happen pretty soon. We're losing the protective cover of other cars. It's dark, but not that dark."

Don pushed on the gas, watching the speedometer edge skyward. "We can catch up and take over the tail in five minutes. Ian?"

"Feretti says that the others are ten behind us," Ian reported, his own phone to his other ear, playing switchboard operator. "Granger, you can hold out for that long?"

"We'll find out," Colby said grimly. Then—"Crap. What're they doing?"

"Colby?"

"Don, they're slowing down. What do you want us to do?"

"They can't engage!" Ian hissed. "There's twelve of them, and only two of Sinclair and Granger!"

Don agreed without hesitation. "Go by 'em, Colby. Don't stop."

"Got it, Don. What the—?"

"Colby?" That didn't sound good.

"Don, they're stopping. The second limo, I mean. They're slowing down!"

"Don't engage!" Whatever the suspects had in mind, Don wanted no part of it. "Go around them!"

"Dammit, they've fishtailed the limo! They're blocking the road! Don, we can't go around!"

"Get out of there!" Don yelled. "Turn around and get out of there!"

"Two men getting out, and they're armed!"

Both Don and Ian could hear the sudden shattering of glass, laced with gunfire. "Colby!"

"David!" Colby's voice was reaching new heights. The field agent threw his voice toward the phone one more time. "Man down! I repeat: man down! We are taking fire!"

"Call it in!" Don snarled to Ian. He slammed his foot onto the gas pedal, and the Suburban leaped forward with all the power that Don had persuaded his mechanic to stick under the hood. Don wanted it, wanted the speed, couldn't afford to spend even one second longer than he had to. "Call it in! Call in the LAPD SWAT!"


	8. Sacrificial Lambs

This was it. It was time.

Allison Jeter caught Charlie's eye, and he gave a miniscule—and scared—nod. He was as ready as he would be, and there wasn't anything to be accomplished by waiting except an exponential increase in tension.

The woman stretched her arms over her head, hearing and feeling the joints creak. "That's it for me," she declared. "I'm beat. I think I'm going to head upstairs, and pick up in the morning. What about the rest of you?"

Professor McKenzie looked up. "Are you certain?" he asked. "I'm at a particularly interesting juncture. I would not be adverse to another hour or two." Lie. The whole conversation had been set up in advance to make their exit more believable.

"Well, I would," Husinger told him querously. "This is past my bedtime." He slid his chair back, the wheels soundless on the tightly-woven carpet. He slid his mouse over the pad, making the requisite clicks to turn the computer off. "I'm done for the night."

Whimsey sighed artistically. "Me, too, I'm afraid, old chap. Your piece may be going well, but I'm at a bit of standstill until Jeter here figures out her part."

"Me?" Dr. Jeter smiled. "If that's what's holding you back, professor, then you're in for a long wait." She turned to Charlie. "How about you, Charlie?"

Charlie shrugged, trying to make it seem natural. "I could go either way," he said. "If you all want to take a break until morning, I can handle that." Keep it cool. Keep it cool.

"That's what we'll do, then." Husinger made the decision for all of them. "Whimsey, if you want to stay here a bit longer, be my guest. The rest of us will see you in the morning."

"Oh, all right," Whimsey grumbled. "Simply not the same without the rest of you tapping on your own computers. Quite enjoyable, this," he added, waving his hand at the circle of laptops hardwired to each other on the conference table. He pushed his chair back and rose. "Gentlemen. Lady," he tacked on, motioning toward the lone female colleague. "Till the morrow."

"I'll walk along with you, Whimsey," McKenzie said, rising.

"My room is in the other direction," Charlie said, getting up himself. He yawned, trying to make it look natural and surprising himself when it turned into a real yawn. "See you in the morning."

He lost sight of the other four, walking along the corridor with its thick red carpeting. His path took him along a hall with large windows, and he looked out over the night-darkened terrain, across the fields leading into thick trees all around. Yes, there was another of AutoDyne's people, a gun of some kind slung across his back. The man was watching the wilderness, and Charlie had not a clue as to what the guard was searching for. This was America, for heaven's sake. Was there some opposite number who was about to launch an attack?

Maybe there was. This whole situation was entirely too unsettling. It didn't make sense, and yet it made far too much sense. Who were these AutoDyne people, and why were they making such efforts to seem like an ordinary company with strong ties to the military? Charlie continued to stroll along the hallway, looking for his opportunity and trying not to shake with nerves. Why were they so hell-bent on pretending that they were leaving the geniuses to work out the project, yet keeping close tabs on the work going on—or so they thought. Jeter's work with the circle of laptops would make their erstwhile employers believe that they were getting the real thing, at least for a short while. Charlie was under no misapprehension that the ruse would last much longer. If Jeter was to be believed, AutoDyne would have their own expert working on the thing through the rest of the night. It would hit the fan as they awoke and prepared to resume 'work'.

Charlie had no intention of being around to find out what that would look like.

He passed another guard, this one ambling along the hallway in the opposite direction. There was a handgun in a holster discretely tucked away under the man's arm. Charlie saw the slender bulge and recognized it; Don routinely had the same bulge.

"Good evening, sir," the guard greeted him. "Taking a break?"

Charlie tried yawning again, pleased when it worked. "No, we're packing it in for the night," he said, stifling another yawn.

The guard also tried to stifle his own yawn, generated by Charlie's. "We'll see you in the morning, then."

"In the morning," Charlie echoed, trying to sound tired rather than tense. He moved on, looking at the windows along the corridor to use them as quasi-mirrors to see when he was quite alone.

Now. This was it. There was no one beside himself to see anything, and there was an exit panel into the dark night. An alarm would go off—there was a sign above the door stating 'Fire Exit Only', but that couldn't be helped. Trying to leave through the front lobby would have been worse.

The fire exit beeped raucously, and Charlie hastened to close the door behind him, pleased when the noise quickly stopped. The night felt cool, but the air sweet. Crickets chirped at him, and a host of other small night noises impinged on his senses, most of which he couldn't identify. It didn't matter; what did was leaving this place quickly. Once Charlie was beyond reach, the others would be safe. AutoDyne couldn't even threaten to kill any of the remaining four, not without jeopardizing forever their ability to unlock the cipher program that Charlie had designed. The Weapon—the _real_ one—would be unable to be accessed by the AutoDyne people until they had all five researchers back in custody.

Charlie didn't intend to let that happen.

This would be the tricky part. There were guards all around and each armed with a rifle of some sort. Did they have night vision goggles? Charlie hoped not, because that would eliminate any chance he had of escaping undetected. Even the brief fire alarm would draw the AutoDyne people toward his spot.

Staying here wouldn't help. Charlie tried to stay silent, thankful that he was wearing his cross trainers rather than something more formal. He took a moment to bend over and rub black dirt onto them; he didn't need two flashing white feet to give him away in the darkness.

Which way to go? The easiest would be to sneak around to the front and hoof it off along the roadway. He could intersect the road a mile or so down the mountain, and from there it would simply be a matter of trotting along until he came across some place where he could contact Don.

He wondered at himself. Contact Don? It seemed only natural. If he were to call someone else, someone such as the local authorities, they would look at him as though he had escaped from the local looney bin. _Hi, there_, he imagined himself saying, _I'm Charlie Eppes, world-famous mathematician, even though you've never before heard my name. I just escaped from a top secret project that's being hijacked by possible terrorists. Would you please call out the National Guard?_ When the locals finished laughing, they'd cart him off to the nearest psychiatrist for a whole cupful of mind-numbing drugs.

For the moment, he needed to avoid the men stationed outside. Charlie froze beside a tree, trying to look like part of the bark, hoping that the man who was scrunching pebbles under his feet on the path hadn't noticed this particular patch of blackness.

So far, so good. The man moved on, and Charlie eased out his breath that he hadn't realized that he'd been holding.

Now to get to the front. He'd need to sidle through the underbrush beyond the neatly manicured lawn. Charlie surveyed the territory, trying to think like his older brother. _How do I get from Point A to Point B without being seen?_ Crawling on his belly didn't look like it would work. The grass barely topped three inches, not nearly enough to cover him lying down.

There were bushes toward the back, a spot that Charlie remembered from this morning. Was it only this morning that he'd done a five mile run? It seemed much longer. They'd tacked on a guard to run with him, afraid to let any of their prize flock out of their sight.

Well, Charlie was out of their sight at the moment, even if the AutoDyne folks hadn't realized it yet. Charlie would need to make the most out of his temporary advantage.

He froze once more, to let a pair of guards walk on past the entrance to the jogging trails. This would be it. Charlie listened intently, trying to judge how quickly the pair were moving off toward the other side of the lodge and if there were any other guards close by.

It was time. There would be no better opportunity. Charlie eased himself through the remainder of the bushes and onto the trail. The dirt was hard-packed beneath his feet, and a twig snapped. He stopped, listening, hoping that no one had heard.

So far, so good. Charlie carefully placed his feet, trying to avoid any sound, until he was a good fifty yards away from the lodge.

Then he ran.

* * *

David slammed on the brakes, slewing the car around. "What are they doing—?"

Colby grabbed the cell and spoke hurriedly. "Dammit, they've fishtailed the limo! They're blocking the road! Don, we can't go around!" This didn't look good. In fact, it looked downright ominous.

Don apparently thought so, too. "Get out of there! Turn around and get out of there!"

Colby saw something else, something even more alarming. "Two men getting out, and they're armed!"

David reacted. He threw the car into reverse, swinging it around so that they could beat a hasty retreat. Outnumbered, outgunned—there was nothing else to do. Beyond the two men the agents could see more in the limo watching what was going down and ready to pitch in if needed.

Both men hoisted their weapons into position faster than Colby believed possible. Clearly they were mercenaries, trained within an inch of their lives—trained killers. They aimed and fired. The windshield shattered.

David slumped in the driver's seat.

"David!" Colby's voice reached new heights. The field agent threw his voice toward the cell phone one more time. "Man down! I repeat: man down! We are taking fire!" He hauled his partner down below the level of the dashboard for whatever meager protection it offered, pulling out his own puny handgun in a desperate attempt at defense.

Colby could hear shouting on the cell, and dismissed it. He had better things to do, like firing back at the two advancing attackers. He poked the nose of the handgun out through the now empty windshield and fired.

They responded by putting at least ten rounds into the radiator.

_Damn glad this isn't my car. David's gonna have a bird._

_Assuming he's still alive._

What the hell was he supposed to do now? This was like that time in Afghanistan, when his unit had been ambushed. They'd taken heavy fire, and the guerillas were all around them, firing in all directions. Grenades, too—Colby remembered having some shrapnel dug out of his arm when they'd limped back to base.

Not gonna have any shrapnel this time. Gonna be lucky not to end up with a hole in his head. Colby shoved his hand above the covering dashboard and blindly fired off another shot, wondering how many more rounds he had.

How long before Don and Edgerton got there? There was no doubt in Colby's mind that his boss was pounding the pedal into the floor, begging that monster truck of his to move even faster. Ian would be rolling down his window, getting ready to put a single deserving bullet right where it belonged, never mind that both the mercenary and the sniper were moving targets. An impossible shot—and Ian would make it happen.

Question was: would it be in time? Another six rounds slammed into the wreck of David's car, making the thing shudder around them. Should Colby draw them off? Naw; they'd just make certain that David was dead and put a bullet into Colby's fleeing back.

_Now would be a good time, Don._

Three rounds left. Not even close to being enough. Colby darted his head up, saw that the pair of attackers had advanced another ten yards, keeping to the edges of the road now that their quarry had demonstrated the ability to fire back. Good; every second gained was a second more that the cavalry had to come prancing over the hill. Colby saw his chance, and took it.

_Damn_ good aim. One of the pair yelped in dismay, and then they both poured in the bullets into the remnants of David's car.

Both limos had vanished, Colby realized as he huddled underneath the dash. The pair of gunmen had been left behind. Sacrificial lambs? A deadly delaying tactic?

_Maybe you'd better concentrate on getting your ass out here in one piece, and worry about that tomorrow._

More bullets slammed into the hulk, rattling it back and forth. Blood sprang forth onto Colby's arm, and he stared at it in alarm. Had David been hit again? Had the bullet slipped through the front of the crunched car to add further insult to injury? Colby hunkered down, covering his partner's unmoving form with his own body. _Don, where the hell are you?_

Roar of an engine. _Yes! The cavalry has arrived! _Piercing whine of a streaking bullet, one less like a bulldozer and more like a surgical precision scalpel. 

A scream of pain.

No time to think. Colby pushed up, aimed, and fired at his attackers, feeling more than seeing the Suburban swerve to a halt, dust kicking up. Ian's rifle poked out of the passenger's window, black and deadly. Another shot, and one of Colby's foes fell, clutching his leg and howling.

The rest happened in pseudo-slow motion.

Mercenary number two put a bullet into his fellow gunman, straight into the skull.

The howling stopped, and so did any future chance at questioning the man.

Don's own rifle was in his hands, and he put one into the mercenary's shoulder. "We need this one alive!"

The mercenary was pleased to hear that. He whirled, and took off toward the covering woods, looking to escape.

Ian fired. The bullet kicked up pebbles at the man's running feet.

Not enough. The man kept running, so both FBI agents took one more shot each.

Mercenary down, blood spurting from both knees.

* * *

"Colby!" Don yelled. "David!" Dammit, the scene looked like a battlefield! Bullet casings were all over, smoke pouring from the heap that used to be David's pride and joy.

Not yet; there was a scene to secure. There was still danger. Rule One: secure the scene. It didn't matter that both of his men could be bleeding to death; if they didn't secure the scene, one or both of the suspects could gain control of their weapons and shred two more FBI agents.

First, the one that was still moving. Ian kicked the rifle out of reach, Don covering him and wishing that he had an excuse to make certain that the man would never move again. _David? Colby?_ Ian slapped on a pair of steel handcuffs, ignoring the whimpering that seeped out of the man. Suspect one: secure.

Suspect two took less time. Don kicked the man's rifle away and knelt to assess: dead. No pulse, no danger. Even the blood had stopped leaking out, was congealing in the dirt.

Scene secure. "Watch him," Don snapped at Ian, breaking into a run toward the smoldering heap. "David!" he yelled again. "Colby!"

"Don?" A head covered with soot poked gingerly up and over the dashboard.

"You all right?" Don grabbed at the handle of passenger door, swearing as the thing came off in his hand. He took another hand hold and yanked.

The entire door came off and rattled onto the ground. There were two bodies inside, both covered with dirt and sweat and fear—and blood.

Ian was by Don's side. "The other one's not going anywhere," he grunted.

"Good. Let's get them out of there." Because neither of Don's two agents seemed to be moving particularly well. Don took hold of Colby's arm, Ian the other, and gently lifted him off of the other agent and out of the wreck.

"I can help," Colby protested, slumping against the side of the car. "Get David."

"We got him," Don reassured the younger agent, wondering if Colby was going to be able to remain on his feet. There was blood on the man's shirt, and Don couldn't tell whose it was.

Not the highest priority at the moment. Colby was moving, and David was not. Where the hell was the ambulance? They were past even the suburbs, but they ought to be hearing sirens by now—there they were, in the distance. Don reached in to feel for a pulse. "David? David?"

No response, although Don could feel the fluttering heartbeat against his questing fingers. "He's alive," he said grimly.

Ian slipped around to the driver's side. "We can get him out this way. Lift his shoulders."

"I got him." Don slipped his hands underneath David's arms, letting the man's head loll against his chest. There was a smear of blood, dark in night, across the agent's temple. Head wounds bleed a lot, Don tried to tell himself, tried to persuade himself that he wasn't carrying out a man who would never wake up.

"On the ground," Ian directed. "Lay him flat." Ian himself reached for the pulse. "Strong."

The ambulance song grew louder, joined by more than one emergency vehicle, and Ian stood up. "I'll get the flash, wave 'em down."

Colby staggered over. "Don?" he asked, his voice full of fear.

"He's alive, Colby." Don couldn't say anything else, but he could say that. "Help is almost here."

A large black truck was the first to come screaming onto the scene, men with bullet-proof vests jumping out of the back, weapons in hand and ready for trouble. Ian waved the flashlight at them, pulling them over to the side of the road.

"Edgerton," he identified himself curtly. "We're secure. One perp, wounded and cuffed, the other's DOA. Check for signs that two limos full of suspects may be in the area. Call it in," he ordered.

"Move out," the leader of the group agreed, and a swarm of agents covered the ground, hunting for anyone left in the night-covered bushes. Don heaved a sigh of relief; one less thing for him to worry about, and he had plenty.

Ian hesitated for only a moment. "Stay with your people, Don," he offered. "I'm going to take a look-see."

"You do that," Don agreed grimly, knowing that the sniper would find anything if there was anything to find. The locals were good, but this needed more than good.

The ambulance's arrival was more sedate than the FBI's, but not by much. The medics jumped out, pulling equipment as they ran. All Don could do was to keep himself out of the way and give them room to work.

"What happened?"

"Fire fight," Don forced himself to say. "We pulled him out of the car."

"Head wound," the blond said tersely, peering closely at David's unresponsive face and checking for vital signs. "His pressure's good, pulse is okay. Pupils equal and reactive. I'm gonna start a line, to be safe. I'll call it in," he told his partner. "You get the other guy over there, the one in cuffs. We'll transport 'em both ASAP. Anybody else hurt?" he asked, turning to Don.

"Colby?" Don looked at the other man.

"I'm okay, Don," Colby insisted.

Don knew better. "There's blood on your shirt."

Colby cringed. "It's David's."

Possible. Even likely. Don wasn't taking any chances, and he moved in. "Let me see your arm."

"Don…"

"Not taking no for an answer, Colby." Don unfastened the few buttons that hadn't been ripped apart and pulled the fabric away to expose the flesh below.

Relief: yes, the blood was Colby's but it was barely a scratch across his bicep.

Colby, too, relaxed at the sight. Clearly the agent hadn't known the extent of his own injuries; had refused to think of it while his partner was down, if Don knew his man. That it had turned out to be minor was a blessing that he hadn't dared hope for. "I'm okay, Don. See to David."

"He's got people looking after him." Don watched as the medics pulled a stretcher over across the rough terrain. "Wait here. Don't move."

"Not moving, Don." Colby positioned himself against the creaking wreck of David's car. He clearly wanted to think of it as 'relaxing'. Don knew better: the adrenalin was ebbing away, taking all of Colby's strength with it.

Good enough for the moment. Don hastened to help the two medics wrestle David's limp form onto a stiff board—"to protect his back" the dark-haired medic tossed off oh-so-casually, concern in every syllable—and then did his share to lift and fasten the board to something with wheels so that the unconscious man could be moved more easily.

"Hey, he's coming around," the medic noted.

"Good," murmured the other. "Good sign."

David moved his lips, said something too low for Don to catch.

Don leaned in. "You're gonna be okay, David," he said close to the man's ear. "We got you. We're going to take care of you."

"Good." David could barely form the word, but the meaning got through. David closed his eyes, even the miniscule amount of light in the early evening too much to bear.

"I'm going with him," Don announced. He started to look around, intending to hand the keys to the Suburban to Ian.

The blond medic shook his head. "Sorry, guy; no can do. We're going to have to get your suspect in on the other stretcher, and there won't be enough room. Not for the two of them. Unless you want to play guard?"

No, Don didn't want to play guard. Given the amount of damage done to his people, he was just as likely to let the suspect bleed to death on the way to the nearest hospital and then bleeding heart liberals would be out for his head. Besides, they needed the man alive. They needed him alive so that he could talk and tell them just what the hell was going on.

The blond medic gave him another excuse. "We don't have enough room for him, but I'd advise you to get your other man checked out. You can follow in your vehicle."

"What?" That brought Don up short. "He's not okay?"

"Probably fine," the medic hastened to assure him. "Just a precaution. He might need a tetanus shot; that scratch is dirty, and a little deep."

Ian trotted up, his gait the easy lope of a wolf, just in time to hear the medic. "We'll bring him in," he promised the medics. "Come on, Don. Let's get him into your truck."

"Yeah." Don stared at the other medic who was buckling down David's stretcher. The federal agent had lapsed into unconsciousness once again, limp and unresisting against the heavy straps that held him in place. "You find anything on the suspects?"

Ian pursed his lips. "Not a thing," he admitted unhappily. "Come on, Don," he urged, taking Don's arm. "Let's get Colby. Let's get him out of here."

How the hell had this gone so far down hill so fast? One minute they were watching the office building for something out of the ordinary, and the next he had a man down, a dead suspect, and another suspect with bullets through his knees. _Oh, and let's not forget two limos filled with mercenaries, _Don reminded himself. _Where were they headed? What did they have in mind?_ And: _who hired them?_

No time for that at the moment. He had another agent in need of tender loving care, FBI style. There was a debriefing to be held, to see if they could come up with any reason why the limo had stopped and disgorged two armed men who had proceeded to shred the unmarked car following them and the two FBI agents within.

Colby was shivering badly by now, leaning against the Suburban, the cool night air kicking in with a vengeance. No, not the cool temperature; it was shock. The team leader in Don took over. The emergency was over. It was time to stand down from high alert. "You need to sit," he ordered, slipping his hand under Colby's arm. "Get in the truck."

"I'm okay," Colby protested with more vehemence than energy. He stood up straight, coming away from the Suburban, trying to pull away from Don and ready to move out of the way so that Ian could open the door.

Mistake. The shaking became more pronounced, and Colby's eyes started to roll back up in his head.

"Crap," came from Ian, the sniper grabbing Colby's other side, trying to prevent a swift slide to the ground.

"Get his head down," Don ordered. "Here, get the car door. Let's put him flat on the back seat of the Suburban."

"I'm okay," Colby mumbled, sinking helplessly into their grasp, legs refusing to do their job. "'M okay."

"Right." Don maneuvered the younger agent onto the car seat, tugging until he got the man where he wanted him.

Colby was still openly trembling, couldn't help himself. Don looked around for the medics, hoping for some professional assistance. No luck there; the ambulance had already gone off, not bothering with a siren this far out in the wilderness. Don frowned and settled for second best. "Ian, get my kit in the back of the truck. I've got a couple of blankets."

"Here they are." Ian handed over the silvery mound, and Don tucked it in around his team member.

"Crap," Colby moaned. "This is humiliating."

Ian closed up the back of the Suburban with a bang, shaking the truck. "No more so than others I've worked with. The adrenalin runs out, and so do you. At least you waited until the fun was over, Granger."

"Wonderful." Colby's teeth were now chattering.

"Just try to relax," Don told him. He rummaged in the trunk of the Suburban for something for his agent to drink, something with calories and replacement electrolytes. "Let's get you to the same hospital where they're taking David. You can be roomies."

"I'm not stayin'," Colby grouched.

"You are if they tell you to, and that's an order." Don slid behind the wheel, handing Ian the sports drink to try to pour down Colby's throat. The man was so white! What if that scratch on his arm was more than it looked like? What if this was more than a straightforward reaction to almost getting killed? Don shoved the key into the ignition and turned it, listening to the engine turn over. This was one trip where he wasn't about to dawdle.


	9. P's and Q's

It would be easy to pretend that this was a late night jog. The dirt was solid beneath his feet, and the crickets and other night life were ignoring the oversized intruder in their midst as they called to potential mates. Charlie's wind came easily from the months and years of practice. There was always something so very soothing about running, about the mindless exercise that freed his brain from its predestined pathways. Whenever Charlie had a particularly knotty problem, he would go for a run. When he returned, the answer would be waiting for him.

There were problems with his pretense: the air was crisp and cool here in the mountains rather than the desert-tinged scent of Los Angeles. It didn't _smell_ routine. The smells weren't bad, but they weren't home.

And the biggest problem wasn't simply a difficult equation to solve. This wasn't a matter of sliding in a few test variables to see if he was anywhere near what the answer should be.

This was serious.

He was running for his life. Charlie was running for _five_ lives: Husinger, Jeter, McKenzie, and Whimsey, as well as his own. If one of them was out of reach of the AutoDyne people, then all of them would be safe. There would be no point in threatening one or another. All four of his colleagues could give up their code key to Charlie's cipher, knowing that it would do AutoDyne no good without Charlie's. Their work would be safe.

There was another difference in his running: he had to remain aware of his surroundings. Back home he would be able to retreat into his head, let the thoughts meander where they would. Not here. At this lodge, with AutoDyne guards all around, Charlie had to avoid every person there, which meant circling around toward the back. Charlie had already spotted several men with rifles lounging in the front, looking out into the night and down the main road every now and again. He couldn't afford to be seen.

That left the back. Charlie knew how to get there. That was where he'd run this morning, doing his usual work out. That was the positive side of the equation, that he knew how to get there and what lay ahead. He could plan.

If he could plan, however, so could they. Once they discovered that Dr. Eppes was missing, they would immediately think of this route for his escape and they would be on him faster than the ascension of a factorial equation.

That meant that he couldn't afford to dawdle. He needed to slip past the guards out on this side of the lodge and move off into the wilderness. Only then could he circle around to the road and hoof off toward civilization.

There was one such guard, peering off into the night, watching the fireflies flit through the air. The guard wasn't alarmed, Charlie noted, which suggested that his absence hadn't yet been discovered. The guard's weapon was still slung over his back, leaving the man's hands free to be shoved into his pockets. The guard took one more look around, inhaled deeply of the fresh mountain air, and moved on.

Charlie slowly exhaled, letting out his own share of that mountain air, trying not to shake. He hadn't been seen. He still had time before the alarms sounded. Listening intently, he slowly rose from his position, cursing the stiffness in his knees from crouching for so long.

That would work itself out in a moment. Charlie walked gingerly along the jogging path, taking pains to stay silent, trying to remember what that FBI sniper friend of Don's had said on the few occasions that Charlie had listened to that part of the discussion. Keeping quiet in the forest hadn't been high on Charlie's 'must do' list. In fact, usually it was the opposite: when jogging in the wilderness, wear bright orange and make lots of noise so that large carnivores avoid you and hunters don't mistake you for a trophy. Up until recently—just now, in fact—Charlie had always lived by that rule.

Now was a different story.

He reached the edge of the lodge itself, and the trail turned more slender, the bushes reaching inward to brush against his thighs. Charlie chanced a look behind him: nothing. So far, his escape had been unnoticed. Time to take advantage of that fact.

He extended his legs into a run, wondering as he did so if he should have taken a moment to stretch his muscles. It was what he would have done if this were a simple run for fun and it would pay off in less discomfort at the end of five miles or so. It had been drilled into him from way back: stretch out, run, then cool off.

New dictum: run, before they catch you.

Okay, the stretching part could be bypassed, just this once. Charlie concentrated on swinging one leg in front of the other, letting his body fall into the habits of a lifetime, letting his torso float above the ground while his feet did the forward propulsion. His breath steadied into a rhythm, two steps inhale, two steps exhale, eyes automatically spotting the small irregularities in the ground even through the night so that he could place his feet just so.

_Escape_. He was leaving the lodge behind. Ten minutes meant that he was already a mile away, possibly a smidgeon more. Which way to the road, and civilization? Off to the left, but that would bring him back a little too close to the lodge for his comfort. Best to keep on going, onward and outward.

Charlie came to the fork in the path, and he recalled the guard warning him away from the right. What had the guard said? Something about the slope being unstable?

Choices, choices. The left fork, the safer route, would bring him back around to the lodge. He could strike off the beaten path in order to intersect with the road, but that too had a greater possibility of letting him out so close to the lodge that he would be captured. Once that happened, all bets were off. His 'employers' would know that there was no point in pretending, and all five of the researchers would be subjected to intense pressure to reveal their cipher keys. The Weapon—the _real_ one—would be in the hands of people who didn't necessarily have the best interests of the planet in mind.

No, best to take the right fork. How did Charlie actually know that it was unsafe? He only had the guard's word for it, and the guard belonged to the Other Side. Besides, even if it was unsafe, that didn't mean that Charlie would have an accident or that something would happen. It was only a higher probability. Charlie was an experienced runner, had spent many happy nights in the wilderness camping with his dad and with Don. He knew how to handle himself in these circumstances. When it came down to it, Charlie could do this. He would take the path less traveled, come out onto the road some distance away from the lodge, and then call Don for help. Once he got hold of his brother, things would happen, and happen fast.

Decision made. Charlie ducked under the sign warning of the danger, and pushed himself back into a rapid trot.

* * *

"Hand me my pants," Colby instructed Don. "They're letting me out of here. I need to pee, and there's no way I'm doing it in here with a bottle. I need a damn bathroom."

Don grinned, and stayed where he was, plopped onto a stool. "You can wait until they take out the IV, Colby."

"No, I can't! I'm bursting here, Don!" Colby jerked his thumb at the now flat plastic bag that had previously held a large quantity of fluid. That fluid was now inside Colby himself, courtesy of a small plastic tube affixed to his arm. "Tell 'em to hurry up!"

Don kept grinning. Colby looked a hell of lot better than he had some four hours ago, better color in his face and the shaking had stopped. He was still propped up on a too narrow stretcher, his filthy and bloody clothes stuffed into a flimsy white bag, but the energy was returning and the man was almost ready to kick some ass. There was a massive white bandage on his arm that covered an injury too deep to be called a scrape but too shallow to require anything more than a dressing, some antibiotics, and some high end pain-killers, not necessarily in that order.

David too was in better condition. The docs were going to keep the other agent overnight, but David had already woken up once more and said something almost coherent before drifting back off to sleep. The doctor had told Don that this sort of behavior was okay, that David would probably do the same thing three or four times before morning and that Don could sit by the bedside if he really really wanted to but that it would be a waste of time. David would never remember that he was there. David would be more likely to request that Don move forward on a plan that included just and legal retribution against the remaining perpetrators on David's behalf.

"You can wait," Don repeated.

"I can at least put my pants on." Colby glared at Don. "You think this is funny."

"Hilarious," Don agreed.

"David know that his car is toast yet?"

"Not yet." Don sobered, although he kept the smile on his face. It had been a close call. It could have been two dead FBI agents along with a toasted car. Putting a new car onto an expense account was a small price to pay for two lives.

Colby lay back against the ultra-white sheets of the stretcher, refusing to admit that he was exhausted by even that small burst of activity. "Any leads on where those dudes went? I got a personal interest in this one, now."

Ian stuck his head through the curtains at that one. "Not a clue, Granger." He turned to Don. "They're taking Sinclair up to his room now. You want to go with?"

"Yeah." Don rose from his stool. He turned to Colby. "You be good and do what the nurses here tell you to do, or I'll have Ian here sit on you. As soon as I get back, I'll spring you. Deal?"

Colby glowered. "Deal."

There was something bugging him about this whole scene, Don thought as he walked toward the hospital elevators, and the worst part was that he couldn't figure out what it was.

Parts of this damn case were really straightforward. They had been led to the office building by Ian's work in snapping the picture of Goldwasser's contact. Luck had been involved, along with solid investigative work, but everything had fallen into place. Even spotting the two limos had been the result of careful planning: Don had stationed David and Colby outside of the building for exactly that reason. The suspects were identified as persons of interest, and followed.

Then all hell had broken loose.

Don stopped in his tracks. Yes, but that hell wasn't what was bugging him. There was something else, something connected with the limos, and Don knew what it was.

He _recognized_ the plates.

There weren't all that many limousines in Don's life and even fewer for which he'd bothered to look at the license plates. This was one of them. Colby and David had called in the numbers, and Don had run them: the limo in question was registered to DarkSeas, Inc., which suggested that the other limo was likewise owned and operated by DarkSeas. Nothing unusual about that. Every one on his team knew that there was something funky going on. Question was: what was it? Why had somebody who might or might not have been an undercover FBI agent been murdered on Don's proverbial doorstep, his connections including a bunch of over-muscled mercenary types who were being carted off into the night by those two limos?

That made Don very uncomfortable. What made him even more uncomfortable was that he just now remembered where he'd seen those plates before.

Outside his old home.

That license plate had been screwed onto the limousine that had picked up his brother Charlie and taken him away into the night.

What was Charlie involved in?

Whatever it was, if it was illegal then Charlie didn't know it. This sort of project was standard operating procedure for his brother: get hired to do a job for some military or quasi-military organization, come back home after it was completed and keep your mouth shut about it. It was part of the reason that Charlie had been able to buy the family homestead from their father. However, no matter what the project was, if Charlie had any reason to believe that his work was going to be used for illegal or unethical purposes, then he would have refused no matter how well he would have been paid. Of that, Don was certain. His little brother tended to be pretty firm on that concept.

The FBI had lost the trail of the suspect limos in the canyons so thoroughly that even Ian couldn't pick them up. The pair of vehicles had continued northward on the freeway, leaving behind a dead mercenary and another one wounded, and neither was talking. Ian himself had tried to question the one that they'd brought down, and the man wasn't even admitting to name, rank, or serial number. Didn't ask for a lawyer, didn't ask to make a phone call; nothing. Would that change? Not in the near future. Ian's talents were tracking and sniping, but that didn't mean that the man couldn't interrogate a suspect with the best of 'em. Expecting to get information out of that suspect would be as useful as expecting to question the Man in the Moon.

Likewise, there was little to be had from preliminary investigation of the dead suspect. The ME had tried to run the fingerprints: the skin had been acid-scarred to prevent exactly that. They were trying for dental records, but that was nowhere near as easy to track down. Facial Recognition had been put into play, and Don was pinning his hopes on that. It wouldn't, however, be ready before morning. There were a lot of photos to go through.

So here was another reason to wish that Charlie hadn't gone off into the mountains on his 'project'. Charlie would have pulled a statistical rabbit out of his bag of tricks, something that would narrow down the suspects and lead Don and company to the answer.

Don watched the nurses tuck his team member in for the night, David barely waking up enough to murmur something about a headache. Guilt stabbed through him; this was his agent. His team member. David Sinclair was lying in this hospital bed because Special Agent Don Eppes had assigned him to this detail. Sure, it was a risk that every field agent took every time he walked into work in the morning, but that didn't mean that Don had to like it.

_Sometimes this job really sucks, Eppes_.

Back to the case. They now had a clue, and it was up to Don to make it pay off. The limo that had whisked Charlie off into the night was the same as the one who had contributed to two FBI agents receiving high quality health care on an emergency basis.

There were two directions that he could go to pursue this lead, and only one was practical. The one that he couldn't personally follow up on included a visit to the headquarters of DarkSeas, Inc, located just outside of Washington D.C. where all good little mercenary outfits kept their headquarters—nice and close to the politicos who bought and paid for mercenary services, just in case a quick job or two or three needed doing. Don tightened his lips. That foray would be delegated to some personal acquaintances at Quantico. Some of the murmurings across the country suggested that someone just slightly below the rank of Chief High Muckety-Muck would very much like to take down some of those quasi-military operations, and this particular case seemed like just the way to do it. A phone call would go out at five in the morning, that being eight on the east coast. It ought to brighten someone's day.

The other direction was more problematic: Don was willing to assume that the limo was headed back toward Charlie's current location. Unfortunately, Don didn't know where that location was. Charlie hadn't told him; in fact, Charlie had specifically said that he wasn't supposed to know.

That was the key. Charlie might not be _supposed_ to know, but that didn't mean that he didn't. Don remembered that Charlie had been somewhat smug on the issue, pointing out similarities to some of the cases that he'd consulted on for Don.

Don glanced at the clock on the wall: late. Well past a certain father's bedtime, or it would be by the time he'd gotten Colby home and stashed away for the night. Don hadn't been paying attention to Charlie's nattering about the location of his secret 'mission', but he suspected that his father had. Don would make use of that.

Whatever was going on, it wasn't likely that there would any movement before morning. As far as DarkSeas knew, they'd gotten away clean. They'd sacrificed two 'soldiers' to do so, but the end result was clear: no pursuit from the FBI. Don frowned to himself and resolved to put an extra guard on the living suspect. The way the gunman was behaving, it wasn't beyond the realm of possibility that he expected to be rescued at gunpoint, just to prevent him talking to authorities and to prove to his fellow mercenaries that their DarkSeas bosses really cared about their well-being. Spending fifteen to twenty behind bars wasn't going to be in the cards.

Decision made: make sure that Colby got home safely and with a couple of filled prescriptions of drugs, and then spend the night at home in order to quiz his dad about what Charlie had said. They could pick up the trail in the morning.

Don smiled grimly to himself. With any luck, this case would be closed within twenty four hours.

* * *

Step after step after step. Charlie's feet found the trail, tapping down onto the trail-hardened dirt, pine needles cushioning the path beneath each footfall. The scent of the pine was almost overwhelming in the dark of night, crickets chirping frantically at him, telling him to watch where he was putting those feet, that they would take it very much amiss should one of those cross-trainers morph into bug-stompers. His body went into auto-mode, muscles flexing and stretching to accommodate the trail, automatically adjusting to the small surface variations on the path.

He felt the beginnings of a cramp in the back of his calf and grimaced. He should have expected it. If P—if he stretched out prior to running—then Q: he would be free from legs cramps. If not P, failing to stretch, then not Q would obtain and the cramping would be an expected outcome. Of course, he also needed to apply R, S, and T, where R equaled getting caught by the guards, S was AutoDyne squeezing the final cipher key out of him, and T was the world going rapidly to hell in a hand basket because these AutoDyne people were using The Weapon where they shouldn't. Charlie very much wanted the equation to include not R, not S, and not T, therefore he was willing to accept not Q as a consequence of not P.

Charlie estimated that he had been running now for just over half an hour. He could tell; there was that pleasant _fitting into the groove_ sensation that took just over fifteen minutes to achieve and was before the _I'm coming to the end of my run_ gasping. That suggested that he was somewhere between two and three miles away from the lodge. Could he swing around and head for the road? Charlie frowned to himself. Better not chance it. He'd run two to three miles, but the trail twisted around and back on itself to the point where Charlie might only be a straight line mile away from the lodge. In addition, the undergrowth was fairly thick at this point. In order to get to where he thought the road would be, he would need to push his way through thorns and shrubbery and that would slow him down.

No, better to keep running along the path for now, hoping that it would continue to lead him away from the lodge. The danger along this path, he decided, had been highly overrated. Charlie had seen nothing to warrant the yellow danger signs posted at the fork some two miles previously. Perhaps there was no danger, and the AutoDyne folks had simply put up the signs to keep him in a smaller area. They'd clearly done their research and knew exactly what experts they wanted on their 'project'. It wasn't a stretch to believe that they'd anticipated his desire for a morning run and put limits around it.

What AutoDyne hadn't expected, though, was the group's ability to see through their plot. Tanvey and his fellows clearly thought that Charlie and the other professors were academics with their heads in the proverbial clouds, unable to see the consequences of their work and overly trusting as well. Nothing could have been further from the truth, as AutoDyne was about to find out. Charlie would swing out onto the road before morning, locate a phone, and call Don to bring in the cavalry. The cleaning up process would be completed before noon, and the world would be a safer place.

The world had its doubts about 'safe'. Charlie heard a rumbling. He frowned; that wasn't a sound that he was accustomed to hearing, and certainly not on a pristine mountain top. It sounded almost like a train, which didn't make sense because he didn't think there were any railroad tracks in the vicinity.

It wasn't. It was mud. It was a mudslide, and it was coming his way and picking up speed.

No help for it. Cramp or no, Charlie ran. Not Q didn't matter; not U—not getting caught in that mudslide—took on a far greater importance than Q through T combined.

U obtained.

Charlie went down, heavy mud slipping under, over, and around him.


	10. Good Morning

Don made certain to have the coffee made and the aromas seeping up into the air early in the morning. He never considered himself much of a cook, but after years of late night stakeouts he could manage a damn good pot of coffee and serving bagels from the shop down the street took almost no effort whatsoever.

His father ambled into the kitchen, his bathrobe askew along with his hair. He brightened at the sight of his oldest. "Donnie! I didn't realize that you came home last night."

"Yeah, I let myself in," Don admitted. "Hope you don't mind."

"Mind? When my son comes home and brings—" Alan Eppes inhaled deeply, "—fresh bagels and cream cheese with him?"

"And lox," Don pointed out, indicating the pink slabs of fish on the table.

"Lox? At those prices?" Now his father smelled a rat. "What do you want from your old man this time?"

Don affected a look of dismay. "What? Do I have to want something? Can't I just spend the night, make sure you're not alone?"

"Donnie, you know you're always welcome." Alan wasn't taken in. "You blew it when you brought the lox. What's the catch?"

Another figure appeared in the doorway, rubbing a towel over the short black hair on his head, his bare chest topping a pair of well-worn jeans and a belt. "Hello, Mr. Eppes."

Don had to hand it to his father; the man didn't miss a beat. "Ian! Long time, no see."

"Good to see you, too, Mr. Eppes." Ian dropped the damp towel across his neck and extended his hand to be shaken. "Thanks for letting me crash the night. Don said you wouldn't mind."

"He was right." Eppes, sr., arrowed a wink at his son that clearly stated _now I know why you brought lox_. "Can't have you putting up with any of those bed in a box joints. How are you doing?"

"Can't complain," Ian said, letting a grin light up his face. "Wouldn't do any good."

Alan accepted a mug of coffee from Don and handed it over to Ian. "So what are you doing in town? Or can't I ask?"

Ian shrugged, taking a long slurp of hot black coffee. "Sorry; not allowed to say, but yeah, I'm here on business. I met up with Don yesterday to swap stories."

"I hope you got the stuff you needed. Thanks, Don." Alan took his own mug from his son, and sipped. "Have a bagel."

Don sat down beside them, snagging the bagel with everything on it. The knife went next, spreading cream cheese over the sliced surface. "Actually, Dad, we need your help. Ian and me, we've got a bet going. I say I can figure out where Charlie is, and Ian swears that I can't."

Alan peered over his glasses at Ian. "No contest. Don can do it. Whenever Charlie tried to hide somewhere, in the house or the backyard or the neighborhood, all his mother and I had to do to find him was to ask Donnie."

"Yeah, well, Charlie isn't in the house, and the neighborhood has gotten a lot bigger," Ian pointed out, grinning. "I still say he can't do it. Not this time."

"Them's fightin' words, Ian." Don was up for the challenge. He turned to his father. "So you see why I need your help. Charlie was talking about figuring out where the lodge was, the other night. I need clues, Dad."

His father tried to think. "Okay, he talked about a high end lodge, that there were only a few that fancy where he was going. Said there were three east of here, in Joshua Tree."

Don dutifully noted those on a piece of paper, knowing that none of those three were the answer. The suspect limos had been headed north, not east. Not the point; the goal was to pump his father for information without letting the old man know that there was a squad of mercenaries headed in the direction that his youngest offspring had been taken. _Keep it light, Eppes. Keep it light_. "What about the others?"

Alan gave himself time to think by inhaling a long drought of coffee. It wasn't long enough; he added a bite of bagel covered with cream cheese and lox. "South or north. Couldn't have been west. Charlie said that whatever lodge it was, was surrounded by trees. In the mountains."

"Yup. That's what he said." That too got written down, even though it didn't need to be. That wasn't the point.

Ian also tried to play the game. "Eppes, you're cheating by asking your father. This is your bet to lose."

Don shook his head. "Nope. The bet was to find Charlie. You never said anything about not questioning witnesses."

"Oh, so now I'm a witness?" Alan got into the spirit of things. "Maybe I'm one of those sleezeball witnesses, the ones you've got to pay off in order to get any evidence."

"You are," Don pointed out. "I'm bribing you with bagels and lox. What else have you got for me? So that your _eldest son_ doesn't lose this bet?"

Alan thought. "North. Charlie talked about mountains, about the Paiutes and the Tehachapis. He said something about three possibilities up there. Then he moved onto socks."

_Yes! Narrowed it down!_ Don kept it cool.

"Socks?" Ian lifted his eyebrows.

"Whether or not they matched," Alan explained.

"But Charlie's a—" Ian checked his original terminology, realizing that he was speaking to the geek's father. "—a genius," he finished up weakly.

"A 'geek' is the proper term," Alan corrected. "Egghead. Head in the clouds, short stature not withstanding. But even a geek gets to have socks that match."

"It was his tie," Don remembered. He made a face. "And that was when the limo showed up." He sighed, making a production out of it. "Don't think I'll be able to squeeze anything more out of the witness, Ian. You?"

"Are you kidding? Toughest stoolie I ever tried to crack," Ian said. He took a ferocious bite out of his bagel. "I'm winning this bet, Eppes. You'd better get moving."

"Hear that, Dad?" Don asked. "Listen, if you remember anything else that Charlie might have said, let me know." He turned to Ian. "Let's hit the road. You and I have real work to get done."

* * *

Movement was out of the question.

First of all, he was covered in mud. Not just sandbox dirty, not just splashed by a passing car muddy, but surrounded by one to two tons of the viscous stuff. He was lucky that his nose had managed to stay above the level of the mud so that he could continue to breathe. Had it not, he would be dead. As it was, the vast quantity of mud had mired him to the point where he could move a finger or two possibly half an inch, but not any more than that. Escape wasn't a reality.

Lack of movement was also a blessing. Charlie had once—and once _only_—tried to move his legs.

The resulting pain, once he'd swum back up to consciousness with the sour taste of vomit in his mouth, persuaded him not to do that again.

Something was rather badly damaged, deep in the mud, and the mud was acting as a splint. Charlie would have been perfectly willing for that set of circumstances to continue indefinitely except for one fatal fact: he was thirsty.

The average human could last some four days without water. That was well documented in the literature that Charlie recalled. It had only been one long night, starting from when Charlie made the fateful decision to take the road less traveled until now. He had quite a while to wait.

At least if he was dead, the AutoDyne folk wouldn't be able to squeeze his pass code from him.

Good.

* * *

Don growled under his breath. Colby should have at least had the grace to look ashamed of himself rather than truculent. Dammit, the man had nearly gotten himself killed yesterday, his partner was getting ready to get discharged from the hospital, and they'd totaled one far from cheap personal vehicle! Did the man have no sense?

Ian passed him, getting himself ready for the upcoming field trip. "Nope. Just pissed. Royally pissed."

Don glared at the sniper. "You adding mind-reading to your resume, Edgerton?"

"C'mon, Eppes. You're not that hard to read. Besides, you blame him? I've seen you do the same thing."

Colby caught wind of the discussion and stared at Don across the crowded room filled with more than a dozen FBI agents, all preparing for today's outing by cleaning guns and fetching ammunition. It didn't need a mind-reader to see what the junior agent's thoughts were: I. Am. Going.

Fine. Let him get himself killed. If that happened, Don swore, he'd make Colby rise from the dead to fill out the damn paperwork that would follow. That would teach him.

Colby didn't care. Having won the telepathic argument, the man silently and grimly readied the rifle for action, sliding the cleaning rod through the long barrel with a little more force than absolutely necessary. The bullet-proof vest was draped over his chair but he wore a sturdy shirt with long sleeves that covered over the evidence of yesterday's injury. The vest would get put on later, closer to the action.

Don couldn't help a parting jab. "If you have any of those narcotic pain-killers on board, Colby, you're benched. I'm not putting other agents at risk."

Colby turned and faced his boss, lines of pain etched across his face. He extended his arm in an invitation. "You want a drug test, Don? Right here, right now? You want blood from my arm? You want me to pee in a cup?"

Don grunted, and turned away. "You just make sure you follow orders." He stalked over to the tech console in the bullpen, before anything more could be said.

Someone had gotten serious about this mess, and had pulled the necessary strings to make things happen. A corpse—even one claimed by both FBI, NSA, and parties unknown—was one thing. This was taking on the specter of National Security, and someone at an appropriate pay grade was getting nervous. Resources became available, and one of those resources was access to military grade Eye in the Sky imaging.

The tech motioned Don to the seat beside her. "Right now we've got eyes on one of the lodges in the Paiutes, the one called Golden Bear. That's the furthest one out."

"Go ahead," Don invited. "Let's see what's going on."

It took a moment or two for the signals to be transported across the distances, but when the picture arrived it was crystal clear. The tech dollied in on the scene.

Golden Bear Lodge had been built for the rich. Fame was irrelevant; if you had to ask, you couldn't afford to partake of the tennis courts that were swept clean twice daily, either of the two heated pools in the back—both of which were equipped with their own hot tub and sauna—or the Italian-tiled outdoors dining area. It was early, but some guests were lounging there and sipping coffee. The view was so clear that Don could identify the tendrils of steam rising from the mug. Even the headlines on the newspaper were easy to read.

"Is that—?" the tech asked, peering at one face that looked extraordinarily familiar.

"Yeah. Even governors get to take time off," Don told her. "This is not the one we're looking for. Too much chance of publicity with someone like that around. How long before you can show me lodge number two?"

"Just a minute or two. I've already gotten the settings dialed in," the tech said.

Ian came up behind them just as the picture came into focus. It only took a single look to rule it out. "No good. Move on."

"Why?"

Ian pointed at the parking lot. "Cars. Lots of them, all old. They're holding an antique car festival, Don. Nobody's going to conduct secret operations when there's an antique car festival going on. Too many mechanics, people who like to take things apart for the fun of it. Move on."

Don nodded. Ian was right. "Next place?"

"It's the one in the Tehachapis," the tech murmured. Don didn't need the reminder; it was already seared into his brain. _What if this one's a washout, too? Where will you look then?_

The picture was remarkably clear, given that it was being transmitted across thousands of miles, Don thought. It started at the lodge, traveled to the satellite high above the Earth, arrowed back down to the military base at El Toro just outside of L.A., and then meandered its way over to FBI Headquarters. All that, and a high def screen so detailed that he could pick out the license plate on the limo parked near the front entrance.

"Can you dolly in on that license plate?" Ian had the same idea.

"You got it." The tech did something esoteric with the dials, and the picture focused onto the back end of the limo.

The plate magnified across the screen, and Don tried not to hold his breath. There it was: the license plate that he had seen on the limo that had picked up his brother and then Colby and David had identified as belonging to DarkSeas, Inc. _If this isn't a hell of a clue, then I don't know what is._

"That's it." Ian beat him to it. "Nine Oaks Lodge. Two hours from here?"

"Just under." Don estimated the distance by looking up at the map plastered against the wall. "Pull out. Let's see what else we can see."

"Right." The tech obeyed, and the camera angle dollied out to show more of the lodge.

Nine Oaks Lodge was a high end retreat for those who could afford it. It wasn't particularly large, but it reeked of money from the smooth wood entranceway to the well-tended forest beyond. The lodge took its name from a grove of oaks to one side; Don could only count seven oak trees, and decided that the other two had died off. Not the point—what was more important was that there were exactly four limousines in the parking lot and not another vehicle to be seen. None of the 'guests' had arrived in their own cars. _Sound suspicious, Eppes?_

"Pull out a little bit more," Don requested. "Let's see the back of the lodge."

Bingo. The only pair in the front of the lodge had been dressed to look like doormen, but neither Don nor Ian had been fooled. Doormen rarely came as large as those two, nor with biceps the size of the oak trees out front. Conclusion: not doormen. That conclusion was borne out by viewing the back, where the casual passerby wouldn't see that there were more than a dozen similar-sized men in camouflage clothing gearing up to move into the forest.

"What are they doing?" Colby had moved up to peer over Don's shoulder. "Looks like they're going out hunting."

"Yeah. What are they hunting for?" Ian put it into words. He directed his next request to the tech. "Can you scan east of the lodge, further out? Let's see if we can figure out what they're going after. I'm betting that they're not on a fishing expedition."

Don tossed instructions over his shoulder to the rest of the men in the room. "Start loading up the vehicles, guys. We move out in five."

Ian and Colby pointed out various landmarks to each other. "We can look at that stream, there."

"I'm not seeing any other buildings. You think they're after something else?"

"Could be. Recent mud slide, there. No matter what, we're going to have to be careful."

Don interrupted the discussion. "All right; time to hustle." He turned to the tech. "Keep watching this lodge. We'll be there in about ninety minutes. I want you to be able to give me a sit-rep just before we hit the place."

Ian interrupted, "you got the warrant?"

Don patted his pocket. "With national security at risk? You bet." He jerked his head toward the door and the rest of the men filing out. "Let's go."

Colby, however, waved his arm at Don for attention, the phone to his ear. "You sure? Anybody hurt?" Pause. "Dammit. Yeah, send the report on as soon as you have it, attention Don Eppes. We'll need it ASAP."

"Colby?" Don headed over, Ian in his wake.

Colby set down the phone, breaking the connection. "Those guys from last night, the ones that stopped me and David?"

"Yeah? What happened? Their lawyers arrive to try to spring the one who's still alive?" That wasn't going to happen. Deliberate assault on a half dozen federal agents? Not a chance in hell would any judge assign bail.

"Nope." Colby was grim. "His friends arrived at the local station and busted 'im out. Nobody killed, but two men down."

Ian's eyes narrowed. "These guys look after their own."

"More likely, they didn't want him to talk."

"Still. A powerful incentive. 'We care' from your employers."

Don tightened his lips. "So do we." He turned to the rest of the room, all of the armored field agents waiting on his every word. "Move out."

* * *

Charlie enjoyed watching the sun rise. It was something that he had learned from Larry Fleinhardt, to appreciate the heavens and the remarkable existence that lived on this planet.

He took especial pains to enjoy it this morning. It might be his last.


	11. Zero Control

"We're coming up on it." Ian looked at the map, and back at the GPS, comparing the two.

Don accepted the information, cold iron seeping into his nerves. This was it; the moment was approaching as fast as the Suburban was approaching the target lodge. "Colby, get a sit-rep."

Colby contacted the tech back at FBI Headquarters. "No sign that our approach has been noticed. We're on camera, about a quarter mile away. Still two guards out front, posing as doormen. Six of the mercs have returned from their scouting trip, don't seem to have brought back anything except themselves and a ton of mud."

"Where are the other half dozen?"

"Hard to tell. Lots of trees, and Eye in the Sky can't see below the canopy. They forded the stream that we saw earlier, then disappeared under the brush."

"How many at the lodge itself?"

Colby waited a moment to get the answer. "Minimum of ten; six returning mercs and another four around the lodge. Could be more inside; we can't get eyes in there. Want me to request infra-red? This time of year, we might get something."

"You do that." If they were right, there would be a few geniuses inside who could be entirely unaware of what was happening around them. "I want to know where everyone is before we position ourselves. I'd rather not have any gunplay if we don't have to."

"Sounds good to me." Colby turned back to his phone to transmit the instructions.

Ian offered a baleful look. "You think that's possible? No gun play?"

"We gotta give them a chance."

"Right." Ian pulled the small walkie-talkie out of his pocket that Don had issued to everyone on the trip up the mountain and waved it at the SAC leader. "Call me when you're ready to move in."

Don stopped him. "Where are you going?"

Another baleful look. "To find a high point. In case you need a sniper." Ian slipped out of the van, his long rifle in his hand. In moments he had vanished into the forest surrounding the lodge.

Don caught the look of longing on Colby's face; the junior agent had been a top-notch Army Ranger before signing up with the FBI. "I suppose you want to join him?"

"_I'm_ following orders, boss," Colby returned stiffly.

Right. Why did Don feel as though he had zero control over this situation?

_Maybe because you don't, Eppes. There are more than a dozen mercenaries inside, one or more potential hostages, and an unknown amount of firepower. This is a group that has already blown up two of your agents and is likely to be more than happy to do the same to the dozen more FBI agents that you're leading into this mess._

He frowned; it was show time. Step one: scope out the place. Don shrugged a civilian jacket over his bullet proof vest, feeling the paper warrant crinkle in his shirt pocket. He turned to Colby. "You ready?"

"Let's go." Colby was never one to dawdle.

Don turned to Murphy, the agent he was leaving in charge inside the van. "Come in hard and fast if we call for it. Otherwise, just listen. I'll feed you as much intel as I can."

"Got it." Murphy nodded, and accepted the headphones from the tech manning the electronics console.

It was a good five hundred yards from the lodge where the FBI van had needed to stop in order not to be noticed. It would look suspicious for two 'sport hunters' to be approaching on foot, but that couldn't be helped. With luck, Don and Colby would have their intel and be out before anyone could put two and two together. With even more luck, the mercenaries would think that the jig was up and would surrender without firing a shot.

Hope was good, but Don wasn't about to count on it.

Colby in his wake, Don walked up to the front door. He put on a jovial and fatuous smile, trying to look like a weekend warrior. "Hey, guy. Listen, me and my buddy here are lost; we followed a couple of big bucks and didn't realize how far away we were. You know where the Top Ten Pines Lodge is? Are they up the road, or down?"

"I wouldn't know, sir," the 'doorman' replied in haughty tones, trying his best to seem like a high end employee. Don wasn't surprised at the answer; would have been more surprised if the mercenary/doorman had tried to direct the pair of FBI agents since Don had made up the name of the lodge on the spot. "Might I suggest that you call the lodge and request transport?"

"Sure. No problem." Don tried to keep it cool. "You got the number?"

"Hey, nifty place," Colby exclaimed, peering in through the windows. "What's this place called? Nine Oaks? How much does it cost per night? Must be a bunch." He guffawed, making it broad. "More than I can afford on my salary."

"I dare say, sir," the 'doorman' agreed, looking down his nose at Colby and having a hard time of it. Colby was as tall as the mercenary. "I'm afraid I'll have to ask you gentlemen to leave. This is private property."

Don tossed up his hands. "Hey, no problem. No need to get touchy." He too tried to look through the windows. "What'cha got in there? Celebrities? Can I get some autographs?"

"If you do not leave immediately, I shall ask Security to escort you off the premises."

The lines were sounding more and more fake, Don decided. The mercenary really wanted to say, 'beat it before I bash your heads in' but had obviously been instructed to pretend to an upper class gentility.

Didn't matter. Don and Colby had seen what they could and it was time to retreat. There was no one inside the main lobby beyond two more mercenaries, both trying to remain inconspicuous as Don and Colby had peered inside. There were no 'guests', and no Charlie. It all looked very suspicious.

They would be back.

* * *

Yes! One hand was free, and it immediately went to scratch the mathematician's nose. Charlie had never realized just how much he valued the use of his hands until he had gone some several hours without. It seemed as though the mud on his nose began to itch as soon as the mud stopped moving. All Charlie knew was that the agony on his nose rivaled any that his leg cared to offer.

Of course, that was as long as he didn't try to move his leg. There was something very wrong with the limb, and Charlie was grateful that his expertise was in math rather than medicine. His imagination, he suspected, would have run rampant if he had any idea just how bad the damage could be.

He shook his head, using his now free hand to shove the filthy curls back over his forehead so that he could look up. If he ignored the immediate devastation around him, he could see that it was going to be a glorious day. The sun had already risen and had begun to bake the mud into an unbreakable crust.

Okay, what was he supposed to do now? He could stay where he was and wither away and die, or he could try to dig himself out. That was likely an impossible task. Even if Charlie succeeded in unearthing his torso, any attempt to dislodge his legs would move a broken bone and send him into waves of agony.

On the other hand, did he have anything better to do for the next few hours?

* * *

Everyone was in place. Ian had taken his spot in one of the oaks behind the building that the place had been named for, giving himself an excellent bird's eye view of the exterior. Don gave the sniper second in command status, control over the back end of the lodge. Don couldn't be everywhere and he trusted the FBI sniper implicitly. Singletons wouldn't get out, but if the mercenaries decided to go in a rush, Don wanted someone with authority to tell the FBI agents to pull back and not get themselves killed.

Colby had taken the cross-fire sniper position, also in the back. Don was more than happy to assign that position to the junior agent, correctly deducing that the man's wounded arm was hurting him more than a little. Colby wasn't about to mention it, and Don wasn't going to insist that the man take a back seat, not after allowing him to come all the way up to the mountains. Placing him in a sedentary spot where he could keep watch seemed like a good compromise and whatever Colby missed, Ian would nail. Don was betting that Colby wouldn't miss much.

Don would be leading the assault in front with most of the field agents at his back. Two he'd positioned at the back of the lodge to bolster up his snipers, figuring that if the mercenaries tried to escape, that would be the route they would take. Some of the mercs could always try to jump out through a side window, but Don wasn't about to worry about that. He only had enough agents to cover the front and back, and he was going to have to let surprise help him with the rest.

He tabbed on his walkie-talkie. "Edgerton?"

"In position."

"Granger?"

"Ready for go."

"In five. Four. Three. Two." Don went silent, letting his fingers do the counting.

The two FBI vans roared into the courtyard, slamming on the brakes to come to a screeching halt in front of the lodge. Flak-jacketed agents poured out, guns in hands. Don put the bullhorn to his lips. "FBI! Everyone exit the building with their hands in the air!"

Right. Like a dozen well-armed mercenaries were going to follow his orders. Yeah, but it was what was required, in order to say that the letter of the law had been carried out. The mercenaries had been warned that Don and company were agents of the federal government, and couldn't weasel out of justice by saying otherwise.

Shots rang out, and Murphy went down, cursing, only to be pulled to the side by somebody small. Dang, it was tiny Becky Taylor, barely tall enough to meet the height requirement for field work. Amazing what adrenalin would do. One agent down, but safe. Don shoulder-rolled to the next ornamental bush and sighted. He fired, and the window shattered.

_This place _must_ have good insurance. Can't imagine that it doesn't_.

That was the signal for more warfare, from both sides. Guns poked out and fired back at the advancing agents. Don fired again, and was gratified to see that he reduced the opposite numbers by one. _One for us, and one for them_. Agents leap-frogged forward, dodging from tree to bush to ornamental statue, using whatever was available to get closer. How many? Don, as captain of the assault, tried to judge. One, two—he counted up six high-powered weapons, all packing more firepower than the FBI. Where were the rest of the mercenaries? Shooting the hostages? No; more likely getting them ready to try for an escape. Two more of the gunmen faded from view in the front.

Don tabbed his radio. "Only six at front, now down to four. Report."

"They're coming out the back, Eppes." Ian's voice was cool as a cucumber. "There's a lot of 'em. Six or more. Eight. Two more, for ten total. Good with their weapons."

Yeah, that pretty much confirmed the mercenary status. Not that Don had any doubt.

Then—"FBI twelve. Pull back! Pull back! Bogies coming through your position!"

That was Ian, and he was telling one of the agents on the ground in the back to get out! There was fear in the sniper's voice, not fear for himself but for the FBI agent about to get—

Round of staccato gunfire. Another sharp crack, and Don recognized the sound of Colby's favorite weapon, big and powerful and loud.

"Ian?"

"He's safe," Ian reported, "but the mercs made it through our line. Eight of 'em, Don, working as a unit to ensure their escape. They're hot-footing it into the woods. Shall I pursue?"

"Secure the building," Don disagreed. "They're running. I repeat, secure the building. Let's find Charlie and his friends first."

"Securing the building," Ian acknowledged, no hint of the disappointment that he must be feeling coming through.

Don turned his attention to the front, just in time to hear someone from inside yell.

"Hold your fire! We're coming out! Don't shoot!"

Don used the bullhorn. Surrender was a gift to be cherished from mercenaries this well trained and dangerous. Two more sacrifices from the mercenaries, so the rest could escape? It was their style. "Throw out your weapons!"

"We're throwing them out!"

The front door didn't need to be opened; the glass had been shattered by gunfire, along with the side windows that led into the front lobby. Two guns were tossed out, landing heavily on the front steps. One slid over and down the two steps to the pavement, the other twirled around on its axis until inertia forced it to stop.

Don wasn't taking any chances. "Come out with your hands in the air where I can see them!"

"We're coming out!"

There were two of them, both big and brawny and with the look of ex-military. Both kept their heads shaved close, beardless—Don wouldn't have been surprised to learn that they'd each seen military action in the recent past, and he wasn't talking this little dust-up at the lodge. Hands were raised, and Don allowed his agents to move in on them, twisting their hands behind their backs and securing the prisoners with handcuffs.

"Teams of two, secure the premises," Don ordered grimly. Where were the hostages? Where was Charlie? "Don't take any chances, and be careful of any civilians. How's Murphy?" he wanted to know.

The FBI agent was on his feet, face more red with embarrassment than pale from lack of blood. "Sorry, Don. I wasn't watching."

"You okay?"

"I'll live. A scratch, only."

"Good." Don meant it. "You okay to take charge of the prisoners?"

"Yeah. Go secure the facility," Murphy urged.

Don didn't need a second invitation. He joined the other agents in clearing the rooms, opening every door in the place—and there were a lot. They were able to acquire some of the maids' master key cards so that breaking open every door to every suite wasn't required.

The lodge was almost empty, and Colby was the first to find anyone. Colby clicked on his walkie-talkie, his voice tinny over the short distance. "It's the help, Don, all of 'em. They're saying that the guys with the guns arrived last night and rounded 'em all up, stuck 'em here in the kitchen and told 'em not to leave. They were to make some meals for their guests, but that was it. Anybody who left the kitchen area got escorted by one of the goons."

"Anybody hurt?"

"The head waiter got a black eye, but he tried to take a poke at one of the mercs, he says. Says they took him down fast and professional-like, and then left 'em all alone. Nobody dared get out of line after that. They're scared stiff, Don."

Don could imagine. It wasn't every day that armed men took over a lodge and turned it into their own private hideout. "Identify all of them; make sure that no one is one of our mercs trying to hide," he ordered. "We'll send them to the local hospital to get checked out. Keep me posted."

"Will do."

Ian joined Don, the two advancing through the hallway, knowing that the rest of the FBI agents were clearing other corridors in exactly the same fashion. Ian suddenly halted, and held up his hand. "What was that?"

Don went still. Then—there it was. Someone was talking, trying to keep their voice down. No, it was two, maybe three voices. Male, older, quavering—had they found Charlie and his colleagues that had been dragged up here by these mercenaries? Maybe now they'd be able to figure out what was going on.

Or maybe it was a trap, designed to blow away a couple of careless FBI agents. Don and Ian positioned themselves on either side of the door, the small and tasteful brass placard indicating that this was the Sequoia Room. Ian nodded to Don: _ready._

Don knocked on the door, careful to keep his body safely to the side. "FBI! Come out with your hands in the air!"

The voices inside stilled suddenly. Then—"Please! Help us!"

"We can't come out! They locked the door on us!"

"Save us!"

Yup, it was professors, terrified and not afraid to admit it. Don had been subjected to more than one over the past few years and knew the characteristics of the breed. "I'm going to open the door," Don warned, still to one side. There could be one or more mercenaries inside with a gun to someone's head. Don wasn't going to take any chances. "When I open the door, I want to see everyone with your hands where I can see them."

What he didn't hear was Charlie's voice, and that worried him. From the looks of it, it concerned Ian as well. The sniper remained flattened against the other wall, rifle ready to fire from its current position, careful aim not required. No Charlie meant that the possibility of a deadly ploy aimed at two FBI agents had increased exponentially.

Nothing to gained by waiting—except for a few more moments of precious life. Taking a deep breath, Don slid the master key card into the lock. The little light flashed red.

He could always kick in the damn door. Don tried again. This time the light rewarded him with a green light, and Don carefully turned the handle to the door and pushed it open.

Four people were inside and—more importantly—no guns. No ticking bombs in the room. No masked mercenaries with a long and sharp knife to a professorial throat.

And no Charlie.

No time for that at the moment. These were still people, with husbands and wives and kids who loved them.

Don advanced, Ian backing him up. "Everyone all right?"

That was a matter of opinion. Everyone was still breathing, but there were signs of damage.

One man stepped forward. "Thank the Lord you've come!" There were almost tears in his eyes. He swallowed hard. "They were going to kill us!"

"No, they weren't, Michael," the woman who had not budged from her chair said irritably. "They still needed us." She looked back to her rescuers, and Don noted that she declined to move her arm from the armrest on the chair. There was a long and messy gash along the skin. "I'm Amelia Jeter, Davenburg University, computer science. Are you really from the FBI?" Her voice sounded rough, as though she'd been coughing. Or screaming.

Don half-turned around to show them all the large yellow letters emblazoned on his back. He was not about to pull out his badge; he needed his hands for the gun in his hands. "Card-carrying agent. Is this all of you? Just you four? What happened?"

"First, an ambulance for Dr. Husinger." Professor Jeter had apparently elected herself spokesperson for the group. She indicated the other member of the group to remain seated, a man well into his seventies by the looks of him, and not well. There was a gray cast to the man's face that Don didn't like in the slightest.

"I'm fine, Amelia."

"No, you're not, Walter. Dr. Husinger has a heart condition," Jeter told the FBI agents. "They tortured him. He needs medical attention."

"He'll get it," Don promised, moving inside. He tabbed his walkie-talkie. "Murphy? Eppes. When the ambulances get here, send at least two sets of medics this way, and don't let 'em dawdle." From the looks of things, Jeter herself needed some of that attention. The other two were standing, and that needed to be enough for the moment. The number of ambulances in this rural area would be limited and overstretched. "Tell me what happened. In words of one syllable," he added, thinking of some of Charlie's explanations. Best to head them off at the pass, given the circumstances.

Jeter kept the floor. "We were each of us brought here to participate in what we understood to be a military-sponsored project. Research, you understand. A preliminary focus group that would later be refined into a project to develop a prototype."

Don hurried her along. "I'm familiar with the concept."

"Our design," and she indicated the others in the room, " was judged by our 'employers' to be the most practical and worthwhile. The other researchers were returned to their homes. I'm assuming that to be correct," Jeter added dryly. "I have no evidence to either support or deny the assumption."

"We'll check it out." It might have been words of one syllable, but the explanation was still getting drawn out. "What then?"

Jeter grew grim. "We discovered that our 'employers' were surreptitiously recording our work through the laptops they'd supplied."

"Be fair, Amelia. You discovered it," one of the others put in.

"Yes, well, since they used my program to do it…" The unvoiced comments included _idiots!_ Jeter moved on. "I devised a solution to divert them. We all recognized that the diversion would be only temporary, so we prevailed upon Professor Charles Eppes to produce a five-sided cipher as a long term method of subversion until we could better explore the intentions of this company. None of us had ever heard of this AutoDyne, you see, but that wasn't unusual. While there are literally hundreds of small entrepreneurial enterprises for the convenience of business, we were uneasy about their practices with respect to ourselves and the project at hand. We needed more information."

Don seized on the pertinent part of the discussion. "Charlie was here? Where is he?" His blood went cold. "Did they—?"

"He escaped," Husinger croaked. He coughed, and cleared his throat. "He escaped," he repeated testily. "Professor Eppes, as Professor Jeter said, devised the five-sided cipher. Unless our captors had all five keys, the information that they had was useless. Eppes is in good shape, in the best shape of all of us, so he volunteered to try to escape from this place. I thought that he called you, that he was the reason that you found us. Didn't he?"

"No, he didn't." It was Ian explaining that. Don was having a tough time getting the words out. "We haven't heard from him. Where did he go?"

Jeter shrugged unhappily. "We don't know. We thought it best that way. What we didn't know, we couldn't divulge."

"Which was a good thing," Husinger muttered. "They demanded our pass codes. We held out as long as we could," he added. "Some of us longer than others." He nodded toward Jeter. "They sliced open her arm, and poured salt into it."

_Crap_. Don suddenly wished that he hadn't been quite so conscientious in trying to take the suspects alive, and his respect for the professors increased exponentially. Those damn mercenaries _tortured_ their victims! Academics weren't supposed to be exposed to this sort of thing. Even Charlie, with all of his work for the FBI and the NSA, was still of the protected category when it came to skullduggery. "The ambulances will be here soon," he promised.

Ian moved on to more important issues. "Who is this AutoDyne you're talking about?" He exchanged a glance with Don. _We were following DarkSeas, Inc_.

One of the others—McKenzie, Don thought—shook his head. "We don't know. Their agents approached us with letters of recommendation from others that we've done similar work for. Some of the letters contained the signatures of government officials."

Just like Charlie. Don didn't need to share that with Ian. It was a given.

Ian pulled them back to his topic. "You said you were designing a weapon. What kind of weapon?"

"Defensive, young man," the professor called Whimsey sniffed. "The world is plagued with hidden landmines and people carrying explosive devices on their persons. We have designed a mobile unit that can detect explosives from a distance with the capability of disarming them, given the appropriate circumstances. It should reduce the death toll from such incendiaries by a substantial amount."

Ian furrowed his brows. "We've got that. Robots that disarm bombs. They're in common usage across the country."

"Ah, but not like this." Whimsey waggled his finger at the sniper. "The current robots are limited in their scope. They are not capable to traversing rough terrain, such as you would find in parts of the Middle East. They are not even capable of ascending stairs, and they have numerous drawbacks in their detection capabilities." He leaned forward, his scientific fervor getting the better of him. "Think of this: a robot that can be directed to fly through the air from a great distance away, capable of detecting minute quantities of explosives whether on a person or dug deep into the ground. If a landmine, the robot can be withdrawn and the mine exploded without anyone near. Should this be a suicide bomber, the robot can detect it and notify others around to absent themselves immediately without loss of human life. This will revolutionize defensive warfare!"

"It can go where our soldiers can't, faster and more accurately and without risking American soldiers," McKenzie added. "Think of the possibilities! We could send a small army of these to fly into the mountain caves along the Afghani-Pakistan border to rout out the terrorists. Should we find what we're looking for, we wouldn't even need an air strike. Simply equip one of our devices with an appropriate military grade bomb and set it off. The visuals that come back prior to detonation should be adequate to identify the targets."

Ian raised his eyebrows. "That doesn't sound particularly defensive to me."

It didn't. Don could imagine an army of those little robots, floating around the world, keeping tabs on whatever Big Brother wanted to keep tabs on and blowing up anyone perceived to be interfering with the Desired Order. "Who has the design for your weapon right now? These AutoDyne people?"

"Yes and no." Jeter came back to the point Don wanted to hear. "They have the data, but it will do them no good unless and until they get the fifth pass code."

"From Charlie." Don knew the answer to that one and couldn't help torturing himself.

"From Charlie," Jeter nodded. She nodded stiffly at her colleagues. "We held out as long as we could, but we all knew that unless they found Professor Eppes, whatever they got from us would be useless."

"Eppes…" Ian turned to him, worry in his deep brown eyes.

Don heard what the sniper wasn't putting into words. When the mercenaries had blown through his position in the back of the lodge, they weren't just trying to escape. They were _hunting_. If Don had allowed Ian to track them, the FBI would have had a good handle on where they—and possibly Charlie—were.

And now the mercenaries had a good hour's start on the FBI.


	12. Calculations

He didn't seem to be making much progress, Charlie thought to himself. He'd gotten the one arm free, and the rest of him decided that it was sufficient for the time being. He could scratch his nose, and he could look up at the sky. He could think—a challenging point of Cognitive Emergence had floated through his brain and he'd scratched some figures into the mud so that he wouldn't forget the details. If alpha sub-one defined the pre-emergent state of cognition, and alpha-sub two the post-emergent state, then the difference multiplied by the cognition awareness factor as proposed in sub-section G of the proof would theoretically demonstrate the progression of cognition across the spectrum of time…Charlie's thoughts drifted off.

He hauled them back irritably. Why couldn't he think clearly? He wasn't in any pain at the moment—not much, at least. Quite a bit of him had gone thankfully numb. He was uncomfortable in the extreme, but that shouldn't matter.

Charlie looked around. Surely that wolf over there was an hallucination. Maybe it was a coyote. It looked small for a wolf, but he thought that coyotes generally liked more open terrain than this tree-covered mountain. He threw a handful of mud at it, and the hallucination loped off in pursuit of some imaginary rabbits.

He was hot. He was cold. He was both, and at the same time. He was hungry, and thirsty, and miserable, and above all: stuck.

* * *

No help for it; they needed more bodies to assist in the search. A dozen FBI agents wasn't going to cut it, not for an operation as this had turned out to be. The local sheriff's department had pitched in, all three of them, and it wasn't enough. Don couldn't wait for the additional thirty men that the Area Director had dispatched. They would arrive within two hours, scrambling to get here fast, but Don couldn't wait.

They needed men to process the lodge staff that had been stuck in the kitchen and they needed a minimum of two agents a piece to cover each researcher. No matter what, those researchers held between their ears most of the details of that novel weapon plan and Washington was going to be extremely interested in what they had to say. Leaving them unguarded would be a stupid move. From what he could tell, it seemed as though the mercenaries had dragged along one of the laptops that the research had been copied onto during the researching process but that would be of limited value to the mercenaries. They had four pass codes, and they needed five. The fifth pass code was somewhere out in the forest, along the jogging trail, trying to escape.

It would be stupid to wait for help to arrive to go after Charlie. Don had at his fingertips the country's finest tracker. They would be going after a well-trained group that out-numbered them by a factor of three or more, but he had to try. If the mercenaries from DarkSeas or AutoDyne or whichever hell company they worked for got hold of Charlie, they'd work him over for his pass code and escape into the dark recesses of the underground. Don was under no illusion that his brother could hold out for any length of time, and the mercs already had more than an hour's lead. They needed to _move_.

Colby was waiting for Don and Ian at the entrance to the jogging trail, rifle in hand and a field pack strapped to his back.

"Colby—"

"What?" Colby looked—and sounded—truculent. It would have been cute when he was four. Now, Don just found it to be dismaying.

"Colby, you're lucky that I allowed you to come along—"

"Don, I've been hunting and tracking in woods like these since I was four years old," Colby interrupted, "and _dammit _I want a crack at these bozos! They are seriously interfering with people I care about, Don." He hit him with the big one. "Besides, you need me. You need me on the trail."

"He's got you there, Eppes," Ian put in, refusing to smile. He eased the strap to his field pack across his shoulder. "There's a lot of ground to cover."

Don scowled. He could object. He could say no. He could tell the ex-Army Ranger to return to the lodge and shuffle personnel around to cover all the possibilities, not just this one.

Charlie was out there somewhere, with a crack squad of mercenaries after him.

Don glared. "You can keep up?"

"Watch me."

"You make sure that you do." Don turned away, leading them onto the jogging trail. Like, what was he going to do if Colby over-judged his capabilities? Send him home from the middle of the mountain with mercenaries all around? What kind of dumb ass operation was Don running?

No help for it. No time to waste. With the other two close on his heels, Don broke out into a ground-eating trot.

Charlie was out there, and they needed to find him first.

* * *

Seriously thirsty. Charlie could hear a babbling brook some hundred yards away, and it tantalized him with the sound. The picture played itself out in his mind's eye, the water trickling over stones rubbed smooth by the years of water filtering down from the snow-covered mountain tops. The water itself would be crystal clear, a fish or two dancing in between those smooth stones and trying to avoid notice from some feral fisherman.

Thirsty, but not hungry. Hurting; his leg had begun to throb and he suspected that he was feverish. He felt cold at the same time; must be the cold mountain air. That must be what was taking away the hunger. Small gifts to be grateful for.

Charlie scraped away another minute layer of dirt with the broken fingernails of his free hand. Soon his other arm would be released from its muddy prison. In fact, the dirt was now so thin that he ought to be able to lift his arm and break through the final chunks of mud. He heaved at it, muscles bunching in his chest.

No good. The hardening mud stubbornly refused to let go.

Or was it that Charlie himself was growing weaker?

This was crazy. Charles Eppes was a respected CalSci professor, and professors of his ilk didn't find themselves trapped in a mudslide trying to escape from businessmen of dubious practices. This was crazy!

Charlie started shivering, and couldn't stop.

* * *

The trail came to a fork, and Don, in the lead, slowed to examine their choices.

One side was clearly more traveled and made for better running. If Don himself were out for the exercise alone, that would be the trail that he would select. The other path was off-limits, according to the yellow sign that blocked it off. There had been recent mudslides in the area, he read, with the possibility for more and guests were warned not to take that route.

Which way had the mercenaries gone? Don looked at the ground and saw evidence of several feet passing through on the more traveled side.

Colby nodded. "Left," he said. "The mercenaries went left."

"They did," Ian agreed, "but look at this." He pointed to a twig. It had snapped, and the sap was only now hardening. "Recent."

"There's bear in these hills," Colby argued. "I'm not seeing any footprints. Nothing human, that is."

"Neither am I," Ian said. "Don?"

Don stared at the two paths. The mercenaries had clearly taken the left path, and they were almost certainly after Charlie. By rights, the trio should go left and track the group down to retrieve his brother. But…

"There's no footprints," Colby insisted. "I'm seein' a wolf print here. That's probably what bent the twig. Look, there's another one here. They probably use this trail all the time, during the night. We want the mercenaries, we gotta take the left fork."

Absolutely correct. That was if they wanted the mercenaries. But Don and his team didn't want the mercenaries, they wanted _Charlie_. And Don's stupid little brother was never one to take the easy path, not when there was something more convoluted available.

"The right fork," he decided slowly. "We're taking that one."

"Don?" Colby couldn't believe his ears.

"The right." It had the correct feel to it. Don looked up at Colby. "I'm thinking—" _hoping!_—"that Charlie would want to get as far away from the lodge as possible, as quickly as possible. The left fork will spin around and lead back pretty quick. Charlie would take the right fork."

"But, the mud slides—"

"Charlie would calculate the probability of a mudslide and compare it to the probability of getting caught," Don interrupted. "Which do you think he'd decide?"

That put a new spin on things. Colby finally agreed with Don, and nodded. "Let's go."

* * *

Charlie regretted his return to consciousness. At least while he was asleep, he didn't hurt.

His leg was hurting more now. The blessed numbness had vanished, leaving him trying not to move if at all possible. Every little twitch, every gesture translated into a wave of pain that started mid-thigh and wracked through him to where he wanted to cry for the futility of it all.

He couldn't even work to free his other arm. That possibility had vanished along with the purple elephant that had come to taunt him with his predicament. Hallucinations, that's what they were. The thirst and the hunger and the fever were all combining to show him purple elephants and green mosquitoes the size of helicopters.

He wondered what had happened to the other professors, now that he was beyond the reach of AutoDyne. Jeter and Husinger and the other two could cheerfully give up their pass codes without a struggle, secure in the knowledge that the weapon design was safe without Charlie's own password. Jeter would make them work for it, of that Charlie was certain. It would be her style: make the bastards hustle. Nothing easy. Jeter herself hadn't had it easy coming up through the ranks of academia; no reason to make things easy for their captors. Charlie liked her, liked them all for their quick acceptance of each other's expertise.

Eventually the mercenaries would puzzle it out. There wasn't a cipher in the world that couldn't be deciphered, given enough time and resources. AutoDyne might not have enough resources, though, and certainly wouldn't want to put in the time.

That wasn't going to be Charlie's problem. The chartreuse wolf skirting the edge of the mud-covered slope would be, assuming that it was real and not just another hallucination.

Maybe it wasn't a problem. Maybe the wolf, if it was real, would be the solution. Wolves were quick and efficient killers, and a quick and efficient death would be wonderful way to avoid feeling any more pain. Feeding wildlife in an ecologically approved environment would be an added benefit. After all, it wasn't as though anyone was likely to stop by and haul Charlie out of his predicament. He was out in the middle of nowhere.

* * *

Don knelt and picked up some of the mud that obliterated the trail. He rubbed in between his fingers, judging the moisture. "This is fresh. Within the last day."

Ian stared off across the expanse. "It also washed away the trail. His tracks are now history."

"It'll take us hours to go around," was Colby's contribution. "Who knows if we'll be able to pick up his prints on the other side?"

"Yeah, but we're ahead of the mercs," Ian pointed out. "We found proof positive that he went this way. The mercs took the wrong fork," he said, reminding them that not half a mile back they'd seen footprints in Charlie's size. That had cheered them and sped them on to this point. "We know that we're closer than they are."

Don looked around. The mudslide had been an extensive one, pulling down trees and even moving boulders. Here and there a branch stuck up a forlorn twig, leaves twisting in the breeze that was doing its best to dry the mud into fertile ground. The devastation was a great swath of brown that traveled downhill like a brown river frozen in time. The lodge had done the right thing by prohibiting the trail to its guests.

And yet, there was something that he was missing; Don was sure of it. There was something that he was seeing and not comprehending. By rights, he should direct the team to go up and around the mudslide. There was less of a chance of getting caught in a repeat slide, less chance for the still moist dirt to begin to shift once more. They would pick up Charlie's trail again on the other side of the slide and find the errant math professor. If they were lucky, they'd even find him coming onto the main road that wound around the mountain, trying to thumb a ride from a tourist returning home. They'd repossess their professor and call for a better ride for him, one equipped with FBI agents armed with weapons so that a certain group of mercenaries didn't try to hijack him and his pass code.

"C'mon, Eppes." Ian was eager to get moving.

"Hold on." Don pulled his field glasses out and put them to his face. He scanned the brown expanse.

Nothing. A twig here and there. A larger lump with gray sticking out it: a boulder all but submerged in the solidifying flow of mud. A lone tree that had withstood the onslaught of the semi-solid mess. A flash of something dark against the brown—

What was that? It wasn't a twig. It wasn't the right shape for a boulder. The carcass of a deer, caught in the slide? Maybe. Probably. Likely—wasn't that a wolf closing in on it? Free eats here.

"What do you think?" Don handed the glasses to Colby, the closest to him. "Look just about two o'clock. What's that shape?" Don didn't wait for an answer. A scary thought was driving him toward the unknown object. He stepped out, slipping on the muddy surface.

"I don't know, Don." Colby tried to lurch forward and still look through the field glasses. "I see a wolf, broad daylight. What's it after?"

"Let's find out." Ian too began to pick his way down the slope, using the devastation of the edge of the mudslide to remove the obstacles in his path, helping him to move more quickly. "Let's not take too much time about it, either."

"It's him." Don didn't need a positive identification to be certain. He could _feel_ it, in his gut. It was his brother, and there was a wolf licking its chops not ten yards away. Heedless of the danger to himself, he broke into a run. The mud held him back by dragging at his feet; too much effort for so little progress. "Charlie!"

The wolf was ready to spring. It could see the approaching competition for its prey, and it was hungry. It wasn't willing to give up, not yet.

Too far. Don was several hundred yards away, and the wolf was only ten. Even shooting the wolf was out of the question; out of range. Charlie wasn't moving—was the man still alive? Had he been killed in the mudslide? Was all of this for nothing?

_Blam!_

A bullet whizzed by him—Ian!

The sniper's weapon was the most powerful among them, a gun designed for long range accuracy. It was the only rifle capable of traversing the distance between them and Charlie and his canine attacker.

Ian missed. The bullet spat up a tiny geyser of mud at the wolf's feet.

But the wolf got the message. With a yelp, it jumped straight up in the air. When it came down, seeing three large men pelting down toward it and its prey, it chose the prudent course of action: it fled. There were easier targets to hunt, ones that didn't have such vigorous defenders.

The mud was deeper here, and Don was sinking in to his ankles. It didn't matter; he kept on going, muscling through the sticky depths to reach his brother. Charlie was thoroughly trapped, only his head and one arm exposed, his eyes closed.

Eyes closed; good. Corpses, especially unattended ones, tended to die with their eyes open, unseeing into the distance. Charlie's eyes were closed, suggesting…

Don flung himself flat onto his belly next to his brother. "Charlie!" No answer, and Don thrust his fingers next to Charlie's neck, seeking a pulse. Cold, the skin was corpse-cold—wait! There it was! The slow throbbing of a heart, just barely alive.

"He's alive," Don snapped to the other two. "Help me get him out of here. Charlie!" he pleaded. "Charlie, talk to me. Say something!"

The eyelids slowly dragged themselves open, trying blearily to focus and failing. The lips moved; nothing emerged.

That was okay. His brother was responding to him. Actual noise didn't matter, and neither did the return closing of the eyes. His brother was alive!

Now to keep him that way. Don dug frantically at the mud, trying to figure out how far down it went and how best to free his brother. Colby too dropped beside them, and dug a metal cup out of his field pack to speed up the process.

Ian loomed above them, and Colby gave him a glare filled with pent-up worry. "You missed," he told the sniper.

Ian's eyes went cold. "No, I didn't." _I didn't have to kill the wolf, just because it was doing what Nature told it to. Scaring it away did the job._

Colby accepted the correction. "Help me get his arm out."

Don paused to look around them. "We won't have much time. We have to assume that the mercenaries heard the shot and will figure out what it means. They'll be coming this way to investigate."

"And we're out in the open, on top of this river of mud," Ian agreed. "We'll be sitting ducks. No cover."

Don didn't bother saying the obvious: _I'm not leaving him_. None of them intended for that to happen, but that didn't mean they were oblivious to the danger. Don issued orders. "I figure we've got maybe an hour before they arrive. Maybe more, depending on how far down the other trail they went, but we'd better not count on it. Here's what we're going to do." He indicated the still figure in the mud. "I'm going to stay here with Charlie, keep digging him out." _I'll check his pulse periodically, too, just to keep from panicking_. "Colby, you call for help. I'm thinking that the signal isn't going to be too good around here, so you may need to travel back a ways to get through to Murphy and the others. Tell 'em to get all available hands out this way, and fast. You got that?"

"Going." Colby scrambled to his feet, pulling out both his walkie-talkie and his cell. If one didn't work, the other one might.

Maybe not. Both sent back static and dead air, and Colby took off at a run to find a place with an adequate signal.

Don wasn't finished. "I figure we've got a little under an hour," he repeated. "You?"

"Pretty much," Ian agreed.

"Right. Help me here for about forty-five minutes, then—"

"Not leaving either of you alone, Eppes," Ian interrupted.

"And I'm not asking you to." These weren't just friends. These were brothers in arms. Abandonment was out of the question, even in the face of sure death. "In forty-five minutes, I want you to scout the area, see what's happening. Figure out how close they are. If you need to, use that pea-shooter of yours to knock down the odds a little. Discourage 'em from getting any closer. Hear me?"

"I hear you." Ian kept his face as stone. "I'll hold them off, even if it means putting one through the eye instead of the knee."

"Right." That was a lot to ask of anyone, to deliberately shoot to kill. Don knew how it felt, and both Ian and Colby had gone through the same horror. _There's a reason they say War is Hell_—Don interrupted that train of thought. "Help me here, for now."

They worked in silence, the better to hear anyone approaching. Neither man believed that the mercenaries were close enough to sneak up on them, but neither believed that they were infallible. Don surprised Ian by pulling out a small collapsible shovel from his field pack, digging in around his brother and pulling out large quantities of mud. Ian raised his eyebrows at his fellow FBI agent.

Don grunted, and heaved away another shovel full. "Amazing what comes in handy in the Badlands," was all that he said.

It went slower than anyone wanted. For every cubic foot of mud that they pulled out, another half foot tumbled back in around Charlie. The mathematician, after the first few inches that freed his other arm, sank back into a semi-stuporous state, rousing only when the mud shifted and caused his leg to move. Don winced at every groan that came forth but kept going. None of them could afford to stop.

Colby rejoined them. "I got through to Murphy," he told Don. "Cells won't work here consistently; the towers are too far out. He heard me on the walkie-talkies, and he's calling for more help. Since this falls under Homeland Security, he's going to see if he can mobilize either the National Guard or a squad from the base at El Toro. If he can find a team of jumpers, he's going to have them parachute in on top of us." He looked at Charlie. "How's he doing?"

Don couldn't answer. The words stuck in his throat, so it was Ian who responded. "He's hanging in there. Start pulling out more mud. The sooner we get out of here, the safer we'll be."


	13. Warrior

Ian looked up at the sky, judging the time. "I'm going to scout the perimeter."

"You do that." Don kept shoveling, Colby alongside him. Both men were filthy, the mud caked onto their hands, feet, and faces. Don had already taken off his shirt and drenched it with water from his canteen to try to clean off his brother's face. The only thing that did, he thought bitterly, was to show him how pale Charlie was. The trembling had stopped, victim of exhaustion, but he and Colby could still elicit the occasional moan any time they came too close to a damaged body part.

_Pass out, dammit. Lose consciousness. Faint. Do something, anything, so that you don't feel what we're doing._

_Just don't die._

* * *

_Movement is out of the question._

_So's talking._

_Me, I usually can't keep my mouth shut. Always talking, always explaining. The Eppes Convergence, that's a good one to explain. Prisoner's Dilemma ranks up there, too. I'm a prisoner right now, trapped in this prison cell of mud. So why can't I talk?_

_Don's here. So's Colby. And Ian. Ian? What's he doing here?  
_

_Hurts. Can't move. 'M listening to what they're saying, but it doesn't make much sense. I know what the words are, but too tired to pay attention._

_Does Don know that I have the missing pass code to The Weapon?_

_Damn, that hurts!_

* * *

Colby surveyed the mess. Some of the damage was pretty obvious by now; they'd uncovered Charlie past the knee to see that the bone had a bend to it that no bone ought to have. It had gotten tougher to work without hurting the man. Every shovel full, every cup of dirt that they scraped away seemed to jostle him more and more, and all of Charlie's efforts weren't successful at keeping the pain inside.

Colby watched his team leader. Don's lip was already bitten through, a drop of blood getting licked away. Don couldn't meet his brother's face, not that it mattered. Charlie's eyes were staying closed at this point. One hand had grabbed onto a nearby rock, clutching it like a lifeline, trying to pass all the agony into the unfeeling stone.

Colby hated this, hated every damn minute of this. There ought to be something to shove into Charlie's vein, something like morphine. Note to Top Men at the FBI: start adding morphine to the field packs, in case something like this ever happened again. They did it for soldiers, made the medics carry it onto the battlefield so that someone could die without screaming in agony. Surely they could do it for FBI field agents, or their consultants, or whoever they ran across who could use a good jolt of the stuff.

A shadow fell over Colby, and he looked up. It was Ian.

"They're getting closer," the sniper informed them. "How much longer?"

Don kept working. "We'll dig him out."

Colby was more pragmatic. "Like this, another fifteen minutes. How close are they?"

"Within the mile. They figured out that Charlie took this route, and doubled back to follow it. It took them a bit longer to find the trail," and Colby could hear the disdain for their lack of tracking abilities, "but not long enough." Ian stared off the way they'd come. "Five minutes, ten at the outside."

Don kept working. The shovel took out more mud this time, and they could all see the dirt shift under Charlie's leg. An entire groan was forced out of the man.

Don tightened his lips, and didn't stop.

"Don, we don't have enough time for this," Ian urged.

"I can't leave him—"

"You're not going to," Colby interrupted. He sat back on his haunches, pulling off his torn and tattered shirt. He started to rip off the sleeve. "Hand me the canteen of water."

Ian took Don by the arm and lifted him to his feet. "Take my gun. It's got a better scope than yours, and twice the range."

"What are you doing—?"

"Keep 'em back for another couple of minutes, Eppes." Ian shoved his gun into Don's hands. Despite the mud all around, Ian had kept the weapon pristine. It had been on his back or in his hands, but never on the mud itself.

"But, you…" Don's hands began to shake, Ian's rifle quivering in his grasp. "You can't…"

"Only way, Eppes. They'll be on us, otherwise." Ian kept his voice harsh. Anything less, Colby knew, and the man's iron self-control would crack. His own was close behind.

"Keep 'em off of us, Don," Colby urged quietly. For his own sake, for Don's and for Charlie's, Colby had to be strong. He deliberately turned away from Don, to give his team leader a chance to force himself under control, and Colby doused the sleeve fabric with water.

"I…" Don looked as though he would faint. Or throw up. Or scream.

He did none of those things. Don turned and walked away in the direction of the mercenaries, his fingers whitely clutching Ian's gun. Colby knew what it cost him.

No time for that now. Each minute was a precious gift, and it was up to Colby and Ian to make them count.

Colby slapped Charlie gently across the cheek. "Charlie. Charlie, wake up, man."

Charlie groaned, forcing his eyes open, blearily seeking Colby's face.

Colby got down close. There wasn't much focus to be had, and Colby needed to make the most of it. "Charlie, listen to me, man. I need you to be real quiet for a bit. Can you do that?"

"Yes."

More of a hiss than a real word, and Colby knew it for a lie. Charlie wasn't going to be able to keep from screaming. Hell, old Stone Face Edgerton over there wouldn't be able to keep from screaming in the same situation.

Not the point. Colby continued on as if he trusted Charlie's hypothesis as much as he did on any case. "That's good, man. Listen, I'm going to help you out with that. I'm going to put a gag in your mouth, just in case. Okay?"

No answer to that one, and for a futile moment Colby hoped that Charlie had actually passed out.

No such luck. Fear and adrenalin were pulling the man awake, and Colby cursed under his breath.

No help for it now. Colby needed to go forward. Ian was getting in a few last shovelfuls, hoping to make it just that much easier.

"Open your mouth for me, man." Colby cringed inside, taking Charlie's head in his hands. "Open your mouth. This'll help."

Charlie let Colby take the weight of his heavy head, allowing the junior agent to push the water-soaked fabric into his mouth. Another strip of the sleeve went around the back of his neck, securing the gag in place.

Ian lay the shovel down. "You ready?" Harsh. Unyielding.

"Crap, man—"

"Let's do it." Ian slipped a hand under Charlie's shoulder, ignoring the groan that got soaked up by the gag. "Take hold of him."

It wouldn't get better by waiting, only worse. Colby followed Ian's lead, sliding his own hand under Charlie's other shoulder and taking hold of the mathematician's belt.

"On the count of three," Ian whispered.

"Three." Colby couldn't wait any longer or he'd lose his nerve.

The two men hauled on the third, dragging him out of the all-embracing mud.

The gag did little to shut down the scream that pierced Colby to the quick.

Only unconsciousness did that, in a gurgling struggle toward relief.

* * *

"Hurry. Get him out of here," Ian demanded harshly. He snatched up Don's rifle and slipped Charlie's arm over his shoulder, heedless of the mud that dripped across his back. "We need to get him out of this open area and into cover somewhere."

"Across there." Colby pointed with his chin, the only part of him that wasn't involved in hauling the unconscious mathematician or his own rifle across the muddy slope. A small piece of his brain gave thanks that the mud was finally drying up, and made the trek less treacherous. "Into those bushes."

"We can hide him there," Ian agreed, one foot slipping before the other could compensate. He staggered, and righted himself.

Don caught up with them just as they cleared the mud slide, not a shot fired.

"Eppes?"

"They split up," Don told them grimly. "Three groups, circling around. They figured out that Charlie got caught in the mud slide, but they don't know that we have him. I hope." He stared at his brother's limp form, unable to take his eyes off the muddy figure. "Is he…?"

"Out cold," Ian supplied. "Better off that way."

"Cave," Colby pointed out, twenty yards up the slope. "Let's head for there."

It was their best option. Trying to maneuver one hundred fifty pounds of mathematician, give or take a few pounds of mud, would be a sure fire way to get caught. Ian and Colby continued to drag Charlie up the hill while Don watched the slopes for any sign of movement.

Safe, for the moment. The cave was large enough for all four men to disappear from view, and Don completed their temporary hideout by pulling bushes over the narrow entrance. It would take a better tracker than he was to discover where they'd gone, and from Ian's description it didn't sound as though any of the mercenaries were up to the sniper's standards. Good enough for now. He had a brother to see to.

The pair had already laid Charlie down onto the cold floor of the cave, Colby tucking the remnants of his muddy shirt under the man's head for a makeshift pillow. Ian's own shirt came off to become a woefully inadequate blanket. There was little light in the cave once Don covered over the entrance, and that was a blessing. All Don needed was to listen to the breath pass over Charlie's lips. He didn't need to watch the color leach from his brother's face.

"Get the gag out of him," Ian hissed to Colby. "If he vomits, he could choke to death."

Don heard the scuffling that was Colby in action, including another groan that indicated returning consciousness for his brother. "Keep him quiet. They'll be walking by any moment." That was Ian.

It was Don's turn. He crawled over to his brother in the dark, feeling for the dark hair that was now matted with dirt and twigs, remnants of the mudslide. He put his lips to his brother's ear, smelling the stink of them both. "Sh," he whispered. "Not a sound, Charlie. Not a sound."

He could feel his brother nod his head in understanding, the movement just barely perceptible. The trembling started up again, silent in the dark, and Don automatically stroked his brother's forehead until he felt him relax.

_Mom used to do this_. If he closed his eyes, he could almost imagine that she was here beside him. There was the warm cookie smell, the scent of gardenias of the perfume that Don had saved up to buy for her for Mother's Day when he was all of eleven. He could _feel_ her presence…

Footsteps. Muttering outside: "Where the hell did he go?"

Don brought himself back to reality. He put a gentle finger over Charlie's mouth, warning him to silence. He could feel the hot breath passing in and out and welcomed every puff as proof that his brother still lived.

It took too long, but the footsteps—multiple footsteps—moved on. No one dared speak, no one dared shift precarious balance for many long moments after that.

Ian was the first to take the chance. He slipped quietly to the cave opening, listening, listening to the sounds beyond. Don knew what the sniper was hearing: the sounds of the insects. Those would be the first to return once the giant humans had moved on, and the birds would be next.

Ian scuttled back. "They're gone, but not far," he whispered. "I'm going out for a look-see." He handed his beloved rifle to Don. "Hang onto this for me."

"Ian?" Don raised his eyebrows, even though Ian couldn't see them in the dark.

Ian smeared some of the leftover mud across his forehead and cheeks, and pulled out a long knife from the sheath on his calf. As a last farewell gesture to civilization, he pulled off his heavy hiking boots, the socks following. In the dark, he looked like his ancestors readying themselves for warfare. Bare-chested, knife held between his teeth—Ian Edgerton didn't need a rifle to perform his duties.

Don Eppes was glad that the man was on his side.

* * *

Silence and stealth: those were his hallmarks. He was a shadow in the dark, a passing flash of nothingness. He came up behind the last man of the group of three and grabbed. One hand to the neck, the other across the mouth so that not a sound emerged.

Not a killing strike; no need for that. Pressure across the carotid just long enough so that the limpness of the body wasn't feigned. The man would be out for another hour. It wasn't long enough to make up for the pain that the mercenary had caused Ian's mathematical colleague, but a decade or two behind bars would begin to remedy the lack.

Ian grinned. The remaining pair of mercenaries had just noticed that their numbers had diminished by one third.

One third. Fractions. Charlie-speak.

It was good.

Two thirds would be better.

Three would make them both whole.

* * *

A shadow slipped into the cave, and Don almost pulled the trigger before he realized that it was Ian.

"Good to see you, too, Don," Ian grinned, his teeth brightening as he tabbed on his flash. He looked wild and utterly untamed, Don decided, the mud streaks on his skin providing camouflage.

"They still out there?"

"Not as many." Another grin. "And they bunched up. Getting a little nervous, I think. Afraid to be in a smaller group." His eyes went cold. "Afraid the boogie man is gonna get them."

"And they call themselves mercenaries," Colby growled. "Pansies, more like." He moved to the front of the cave, hoping that Charlie wouldn't hear them. "How are we going to get him out of here? Have our guys arrived yet?"

Ian frowned, good humor leaving. "Not yet. How long before they're supposed to arrive?"

"They should have been here by now," Colby said, looking at his cell with its numbers gleaming in the dark. "You think something's keeping them?"

"I'm thinking I want to get Charlie out of here and some place where they can mainline a bunch of antibiotics into his arm." Don looked back at his brother, still flat on the floor of the cave, not moving.

"We're gonna need a stretcher," was Colby's opinion.

"You think?"

"I do." Colby dove into his field pack and pulled out a hank of rope. "Couple of long branches, wrap this around 'em, and we're good to go." He handed off the rope to Don. "Hang onto this. I'll be back in a few." He tossed a deliberately good-natured grin in Ian's direction. "You'd better be right about those mercs being far away, dude."

Ian kept up his end. "You sure you were a Ranger, dude?" he snorted. "All the Rangers I knew would chew up those guys and spit them out before breakfast."

Don closed his eyes in a silent prayer of thanks. If he had to be toting his brother through the forest with a broken leg, it was with the best team possible.

Ian had more instructions for him. "See if you can get your brother to take some water, Don. He must be getting dehydrated by now."

"I'll do that." Don was annoyed with himself for not thinking of it sooner. _Like you weren't busy with a few other things? Like keeping your brother from getting killed by mercenaries?_ He picked up the canteen from his pack, unscrewing the top, and crawled over to his brother.

Charlie came awake at his touch. "Don—?" Ready to panic.

"It's okay, buddy," Don soothed, inwardly relieved. The rest had done the man good, rest without being stuck in a mudslide pursued by mercenaries. This cave wasn't the most comfortable one he'd ever been in, but it was a heck of a lot better than Charlie's previous twenty four hours. "Listen, you think you can keep some water down?"

Charlie smiled weakly, the expression ghastly in the meager light of the flash. "I think I'm thirsty like you can't believe."

"That's good, Chuck, 'cause after being in this canteen for several hours this water is gonna taste vile," Don assured him. "Let's take it sip at a time, okay?" He slipped his hand underneath his brother's neck, easing him upright no more than it took to allow the few drops from the canteen cover to dribble into Charlie's mouth.

Charlie hissed with pain at the movement but nothing louder, greedily sucking at the moisture. "More," he gasped.

"Slow it down," Don cautioned him. "Just a drop or two at a time, buddy."

"Apothecary system of measurement: twenty drops to a milliliter, five milliliters to a teaspoon," Charlie muttered, "allowing for the gross variation in drop size due to temperature, viscosity, and…and…dammit, give me a damn glass, Don!"

Don chuckled, relieved, and allowed his brother to chug down an entire half gulp at a time.

Charlie appreciated it. "More," he begged.

Don held back. "Keep that down for a few minutes, and I'll let you have more," he promised.

"Just like when we were kids. You had to have your own way. Control freak!"

_Sure, but being a control freak kept you from losing a lot of lunch money, Chuck. See much difference between then and now?_

Colby was back in less than twenty minutes, stripping the leaves and twigs from two long branches and one shorter one.

Charlie eyed him nervously. "What's that? You're not dragging in green wood for a fire."

Colby grinned. "Glad to see you're up, Charlie. You had us worried."

"_I_ had me worried," Charlie retorted, trying for much of his previous energy—and failing. "What's that?"

"That, my friend, is what we are going to use to drag your ass out of here," Colby told him. "A few lengths of rope, a few knots, and we'll have a stretcher more comfortable than anything the local hospital can offer."

"And the third branch?" Charlie began to shake.

"It occurred to me," Colby said, pulling off the last few twigs, ignoring Charlie's trembling, "that you'd feel better if we splinted your leg. I can't imagine that it would feel worse. Besides, I think your future docs will appreciate something in a linear fashion rather than a right angle." He leered cheerfully at Charlie. "See? I really do listen to your lectures. Didn't that sound really close to mathematical-ese?"

"Thanks," Charlie told him faintly. "Remind me to appreciate your attentiveness when this is all over." He looked up at Don. "You think those guys, those," he swallowed hard, "mercenaries have left the area?"

Ian was the one who answered. "No, they haven't left, Charlie. They're a distance away, but not so far that they aren't a danger to us."

"To me, you mean." Charlie summoned more energy. "You should leave me behind. There are at least a dozen of them—"

"Not any more there aren't," Ian said reassuringly. "Not more than six at the moment, and we've got reinforcements on the way. No heroics needed, Charlie."

"You're sure?"

"Reasonably," Ian nodded. "Reasonably." He changed the subject. "You ready, Granger?"

"Got everything here." Entirely too cheerful. It came across with falsehood written all over it.

Charlie swallowed hard, realizing what was coming and having no energy left to cope. "You sure you have to do it now? I mean, maybe—"

"Now, Charlie." Colby recognized the signs of incipient panic and kept moving. It wasn't going to get easier by waiting.

Even Don shifted uneasily. "Colby…"

Colby wouldn't let his boss get away with it, either. "Now. Here," he said, handing over what was left of his shirt. "Tear this into strips. It'll be more comfortable than rope on his leg."

Don accepted the fabric and used the excuse to expend the nervous energy. The ripping sound startled him—Charlie's eyes, wide and scared, startled him more. "It's okay, buddy. It'll be over in a moment."

"Did this for a buddy of mine, back in Afghanistan," Colby confided to Charlie. "Doc said later that it was a good thing. Ritchie might never have walked again, if I hadn't done what I did. Went on to run a marathon."

Ian poked up his head at that. "Really?"

"Nope. Just sounded like a good story. It was only a half marathon." Colby went on to lay the shorter branch next to Charlie's injured leg.

Charlie hissed in pain—and fear. Panic over the impending operation was doing even more damage to his self control. "Colby!"

"What?" Colby sat back, wanting to wait from causing his friend pain and wanting to get it over with.

Charlie's voice got very small. "The…I…I'm not very brave." He swallowed hard. "I…I don't think…I can keep quiet. The mercenaries… Can I…?"

Colby understood. So did everyone there. Colby picked up the wadded piece of sleeve that he'd used on the mathematician when they'd dragged him bodily out of the mud. He leaned over to hand the cloth to Don, and to speak very clearly to the man on the cave floor. "Charlie, you are one of the bravest men I know. You go into classrooms and face the best and brightest of students and answer their questions like it was nothing. You face crime scenes with blood and gore, and give us the tools to put away mobsters and murderers, and you keep your cool while you're doing it. You put yourself on the line every day, coming up with ideas that will change the world. If that's not brave, then I don't know what brave is." Colby looked back up to Don. "You hold him tight. Let's get this done."

"C'mon, buddy." Colby was right. Waiting wasn't going to make it better. Don slipped his hands under Charlie's arms, drawing his brother up close to his chest. "You just hang onto me; it'll be fine. It's not as bad as it sounds."

"No, it's worse—"

Don stuffed the gag into his brother's mouth, wishing that he been able to gag the kid when they were both playing ball in the streets when he was twelve. It would have been easier coping with the kid back then.

Certainly easier that what was occurring right now. Colby didn't wait, and neither did Ian. One grabbed Charlie above the knee and the other near the ankle, and each pulled. They weren't gentle. They couldn't afford to be.

Don had heard people scream before. He had heard screams of rage, of frustration, of anguish.

This was a scream of pain, and it was from his brother, and Don was helping to hurt him. Charlie's fingers dug into Don's arms and his scream dug into the makeshift gag that Don clutched over his face, both trying their best to keep the sound from ringing out from the cave to where the mercenaries could hear it. Don held on tight, refusing to let go, refusing to let Charlie pull away from those helping, hurting hands.

The scream cut off midway through, and Charlie went limp. Don all but panicked, feeling for his brother's throat, for the pulse, and almost couldn't feel it through his fear.

Ian knew instantly what had happened. "He's passed out. Hurry it up, Granger, before he comes to. Hand me some of the strips."

Working swiftly, the pair finished their grisly work, straightening and binding the broken bone to the makeshift splint. They didn't bother to cut off the muddy pants that the mathematician still wore, simply tied the entire leg to the stiff tree branch that Colby had pulled in to use. That nicety could wait until morphine could be slipped into a deserving vein.

They weren't finished. "What are you doing?" Don demanded. "He's still out cold."

"Best time to get the stretcher under him, before he wakes up," Colby said, not missing a beat. "Can you reach some of that rope?"

Working together, Ian and Colby slid the lengths of rope underneath Charlie, leaving them ready to fasten to the two long lengths of wood that Colby had brought. Charlie was disturbingly flaccid, and Don couldn't help but keep his fingers tight to the fast and thready pulse in his brother's neck.

"Uh, Don?"

"What?" Harsh.

"You might want to pull the gag out. Chances are pretty good that he'll throw up, once he wakes up. Don't want him to choke on it."

Yeah. Don had seen that before, more than once. _Guy passes out from the pain, wakes up and heaves his guts._ Not what Don wanted for his brother. Too bad he wasn't going to have any choice in the matter. The consultant hadn't been consulted. He pulled the gag away from his brother's face, noting the spot of blood where his brother had bitten down on his lip. He wiped the blood away.

"You, too, Eppes. Your lip is dribbling."

Don licked at his own lip, realizing that he'd bitten it again while holding Charlie. He grimaced. He'd have a fat lip for sure. Never mind; if they got out of this one alive, a fat lip would be a small price to pay. "How soon before we can leave?"

"I figure we can have this thing ready to go in ten," was Colby's opinion. "Ian?"

"Ten sounds good to me." Ian finished tying one end of one piece of rope to the long tree branch that would act as one side of the makeshift stretcher. "I want to take another look around first, though. Just in case somebody heard something."

"He wasn't very loud," Colby pointed out. "I've heard a lot louder."

"So have I, but I'd rather not take the chance."

"Good point. Why don't you start checking out the perimeter, and I'll finish up here? We'll break camp as soon as you get back."

Funny how he'd lost control over the situation, Don thought. Funny how he didn't care. Let Ian and Colby run things for a while. Don had his hands full of Charlie. His brother. This catastrophe wasn't even Don's fault. This was all Charlie's. Charlie was the one who up and decided to take this consulting gig for DarkSeas or AutoDyne or whoever. Don didn't tell him to, didn't give him a word of advice yea or nay.

Ian slipped through the brush-covered cave entrance, not disturbing a thing, and again Don marveled at how silently the man could move. He was a ghost, not a man, and Don was grateful that he was on the side of law enforcement. Don was good, but he would have hated to have to try to bring in someone of Ian Edgerton's caliber.

Colby tugged experimentally on one of the knots that he'd just tied, securing the ropes to the long tree limbs that would serve as a stretcher. This simple contraption, Don knew, would make it possible for them to escape from this mountain top. Without it, they would be dragging Charlie bodily across rough terrain. They would be slowed down, perhaps fatally, until the mercenaries caught up with them. The skills of the mercenaries might not be up to FBI standards, but that didn't mean that they were anything to be sneered at. No, the sneering should wait until they had a certain mathematician safely in a hospital bed with FBI-vetted security guards all around.

Charlie shifted in Don's arms; not much, almost nothing more than a sigh. Nevertheless, Don chose to take it as a sign that his brother was recovering and that he would soon wake up again. Don couldn't decide whether or not that was a good thing; recovery was all well and good but waking up without morphine available was not something that he'd wish on anyone, not even the pesky kid brother that had made his adolescent years a living hell. Don felt once more for the pulse in the neck, marveling that his brother hadn't yet started to turn hot with fever.

They needed to get going, needed to move on. Charlie wasn't going to be helped by staying here, not in his condition. Where was Ian? Had the mercenaries found him? Doubtful; he hadn't heard any gunplay, and surely that would have happened if a merc stumbled across the sniper.

Colby felt the same way, getting up and going to peer out through the brush-covered cave opening, searching for the fourth member of their party. "You think we should move out?"

Don considered. It was getting to be more than a few minutes, and Charlie had settled back into an uneasy sleep. "I don't know. Ian should be back any second."

"Charlie needs attention," Colby pointed out. "I think we need to get him out of here. I think we need to move him pretty soon."

It clicked, what Colby was saying, and Don wanted to curse himself under his breath. He'd wondered why Charlie wasn't yet burning up with fever, and that was the answer: Charlie was, only the actual heat had been leached out by exposure to the cold elements of last night.

His brother was dying.

There it was, out in the open for Don to anguish over. If Don didn't get Charlie to some serious medical attention, he wouldn't have a brother left.

Don tightened his lips. "Help me get him onto the stretcher," he said. "We'll take a quick look and a listen outside, and then we'll head out."

A tall shadow flickered into existence, and both FBI agents looked up. "No need," Ian said easily. "The way should be clear for about a mile."

"You found 'em?"

_Of course_. Ian didn't say that part aloud. "They're heading down the mountain. There's eight of them. They missed us completely, think we're close to the main road a couple of miles from here."

"Then we're good to go."

"We're good to go," Ian agreed. He looked at the mathematician, still passed out on the cave floor on top of the makeshift rope stretcher, and his face darkened. "I'll take point," was all he said, "since I've seen the territory here."

They continued to head north, straight around the mountain, running laterally away from where Ian had placed the mercenaries. It wasn't easy going, placing feet on the remnants of the jogging trail and pushing through the brush-covered curves but they managed it.

Charlie woke up once, confused, and fell promptly back into what Don feared was a coma and prayed was a healing sleep.

Colby felt the same way. "Whatever. It's good for him. If he's not awake, he's not feeling his leg."

Ian ghosted off into the forward brush, circling around and keeping a wary eye out for any returning mercenaries. Despite the grim circumstances, Don couldn't help but be impressed with the way the man simply _blended_ into his surroundings. Ian functioned as well as any FBI agent in any setting, but the sniper seemed to be a part of the forest in a way that neither Don nor Colby ever could.

Half an hour; had they covered even a single mile? How long was this damn trail, anyway?

Ian read his mind. "Another two miles, Don, but I don't think we should keep taking this path."

Don perked up. The sniper knew something; had just returned from another scouting foray. "Ian?"

"They've doubled back," Ian told him. "They've figured out that they somehow missed us." He looked off into the trees, as if he could see them coming. For all Don knew, maybe he could. The sniper had already demonstrated some abilities pretty damn close to supernatural. "I think we need to head straight through the bush. Maybe there's a road we'll hit on."

Don grew grim. Ian was right. If the mercenaries were doubling back, they'd pick up the jogging trail and make easy time to crawl right up Don and company's collective ass. It would be even easier for the mercenaries since the trio of FBI agents had thoughtfully fashioned a stretcher for them to haul off the prize mathematician. Three shots from a distance and there'd be three dead FBI agents with a half-dead mathematician waiting for an easy abduction. How the hell had Don and the other two managed to get themselves into this mess, and where the hell was Murphy and the other dozen agents to rescue them?

They needed to get Charlie into safe hands. He was the key to the weapon that the group of geniuses had devised. The research was locked away in two places: the laptops in the possession of the FBI and another laptop that Don was certain had been carried off by the DarkSeas mercenaries. Charlie's was the missing pass code, and Don was under no misapprehension that his brother would remain alive once the mercenaries had squeezed the code out of him.

Don looked up the mountain, the way Ian had indicated, and felt Colby assessing the same route.

"Not gonna be good," was Colby's take on it. "We can't be out in the open, between trees. They'll spot us, easy." He cast an unhappy eye toward Ian. "You think we can get the stretcher through those trees?"

Ian shrugged. "I'm open to better ideas. You got those mercs heading back up the hill toward us."

"We can't outrun 'em," Colby argued. "They're going to be at least three times as fast as we are. They'll be on us before we go half a mile."

"Like I said, Granger: I'm open to better ideas."

"I got one." Don knew what they needed to do. "Listen up, guys. Here's what's gonna happen."


	14. Bush Tactics

There were four of them, hardened men used to gunfire and battle and each collecting a large sum of money for their efforts and their risk. They were men who were used to going into areas of the world where sane men feared to travel and bringing out whatever treasure-equivalent their masters desired. One was shorter than the others but possessed a more devious mind, and they valued him for that.

"Here," the devious one said, his voice so low that only his fellows could hear. "They're back on the trail. My guess is that they're trying to make a run for it. They know we're not far behind."

"Heavy-laden, too," another agreed. "They're carrying him out, probably put together a stretcher. The spook put 'em up to it."

"Yeah." The shorter one's face darkened with annoyance; he'd been the one to find one of his fellow mercs taking an unplanned for nap on the cold ground. The facts hadn't been hard to decipher: one of the FBI guys was as good—or possibly even better—than the mercs themselves. It was irritating in the extreme, and the group of professional soldiers wanted nothing more than the opportunity to even the score. No mere FBI guy would outdo them. "If they're moving quick, we've got to, too. We need to get to that math guy before they hit the road."

"That's all we'd need," the other groused. "They make it up to the road, somebody'll see them and call for more help. We'll lose him."

"Which means a hell of a lot of money." The third man knew clearly what his personal goals were—and how to obtain them. "Let's move out, double time."

They swung into a fast trot. The gait wouldn't break the four minute mile mark, but it wasn't designed to. It was designed to eat up the distance in a swift and efficient manner, something that two men loaded down with a stretcher of damaged mathematician wouldn't be able to do.

Five minutes, then ten. Then fifteen, and the mercenaries had yet to catch up to the FBI agents.

They were not yet dismayed. The scenario was obvious: the FBI agents knew that this was their only hope, to outrun the swifter mercenaries, in time to catch up with the larger group at the lodge for protection. The FBI agents would be hustling along as fast as they could.

It wouldn't help. The end would never be in doubt.

The devious one indicated the tracks: the stride of the footprints was getting smaller, indicating that exhaustion was setting in. The FBI pace would be slowing, which meant that the mercenaries would overtake them any minute. It was time to take precautions. Each mercenary swung his weapon off of his back in order to have it ready in their hands.

The smaller man held up his clenched fist in a silent gesture: stop. Now they needed to move slowly and silently. None of them could hear a thing, which suggested that the FBI agents ahead had reached their limit. They were taking a short breather so that they could once again carry their load at a breakneck pace.

More hand signals: two would circle around to the left, and the other two would take the right. They would sneak up silently on the FBI agents, and on the count of three, would place a well-aimed bullet where it needed to go. The follow up forensics team would determine that each one had died instantly.

Step forward, place each foot so that not a twig snapped below the military grade boot. Silence was imperative, that the FBI agents not hear the approach. Step. Step.

"What the—?"

The stretcher lay in the middle of the jogging trail, a silvery blanket covered a still figure. There was no one else there.

"Did they abandon the stretcher?"

"_Tell_ me the damn math guy is dead!"

"Doesn't make sense—"

Click.

Colby's voice snapped through the clearing. "Federal Agents! Drop your weapons."

They were mercenaries. Not one of the four was committed to any cause greater than a solid paycheck, and losing his life would mean losing that paycheck.

They surrendered.

* * *

Slow going. That was the story of his life. Don had always plodded along, achieving his success through sheer hard work while his little brother simply dazzled his way through school and career honors with brilliance and an engaging smile. It wasn't fair, but—as his father would remind him—life wasn't fair. If you were lucky, your life wouldn't suck. It could be worse; he could have been born in a third world country and had his life cut short before the age of five from disease, pestilence, or famine. You think you got something to complain about?

Yeah, he had something to complain about. His brother, the brilliant one with the secret in his head that could bring down nations if it got into the wrong hands, was hanging onto him and trying to hang onto consciousness at the same time.

A leach, that was what Charlie was, at least to Don. A _leach_, always hanging on in some fashion or another. Growing up, Charlie had needed someone to _leach_ onto so that the bullies wouldn't take his lunch money, his homework, whatever he had and the bullies didn't. Then Charlie _leached_ onto Don's baseball team, drawing attention to himself and away from Don because his statistics showed exactly how to take advantage of each team member's talents and turn them into a winning team. They never won because Don was great player. Oh, no, that never happened. It was all Charlie and his statistics; Charlie, who never threw a ball or picked up a bat.

Here it was, happening again. _Leach_-hood. Simple, straightforward case, with DarkSeas planning something nefarious. Don investigated. Don sent out his team to pick up clues, and where did they lead? To Charlie. To Charlie and his statistics, the one who wasn't supposed to be involved in this investigation. Yet, here Don was, with Charlie, trying to save the world by saving Charlie. Years ago it had been the game that needed saving, the bullies that needed fighting off. Today it was the world, and Don would only hear about it if he failed to protect the leach. Otherwise, it would be Charlie. All Charlie.

Listen to him. Talk about sibling rivalry. Wouldn't the department shrink like to get hold of this? They'd bench him as fast as the time that he'd refused to take Charlie's advice about how to handle the runner on base. They'd said that he gotten benched because Don had refused to take the coach's orders, but the coach had been listening to Charlie. It was the same thing.

This too was the same thing. His brother-the-leach was hanging onto him as though he'd fall down without Don.

He would, too. The investigative field agent in Don came to the forefront and admitted the truth: his brother was seriously hurt, and if Don didn't get him to some very top notch medical care pretty soon, Don would be an only child.

That was the difference between then and now: _degree_. The _degree _of seriousness. Charlie's Ph. D. _degree_ versus Don's lowly bachelor's. Not so lowly, Don reminded himself determinedly. That education alone put him in the top half of the United States and it had given him a good living. Hell, he could live just about where ever he wanted just by putting in for a transfer. Charlie didn't have that option, he realized; had to live where his university was. There were only just so many high end universities that would want his kid brother, and Charlie needed to live close enough to commute. Don had gotten to learn hand to hand combat, could defend himself when the need arose. Charlie—hell, look at him now. That was the answer. Charlie might have the smarts, the glory, the top position at a top-notch university, but did Don really want all the crap that went with it? Did Don want to have get permission from the State Department every time he wanted to go anywhere outside of the country? Did Don want to be the one hanging onto Charlie for dear life, hoping that his leg wouldn't fall off before they reached the road at the top of the next rise?

No way in hell.

They were twenty yards from the road. Don could see it from here, saw the black tarmac that signaled civilization. From there, Don could flag down the next car he saw and get Charlie to someplace a lot better than here, a place that didn't come equipped with mercenaries who wanted to rip the information out of the kid's brains.

Charlie wasn't going to make it, not up to the road. Don saw his brother's eyes rolling back into his head, felt the fingers lose their clutching grasp on Don's arm. Felt him going down.

Not yet. Don shifted his grip, bent to slip his shoulder under his brother's waist, and lifted him bodily into the air. _He ain't heavy; he's my brother_.

Charlie had the brains, but he couldn't do this. He couldn't drag his brother out of the woods when his brother was hurt. All the statistics in the world didn't matter if you didn't have the power to use what those statistics told you.

Don could use statistics, too. Charlie: lighter than Don by some fifteen to twenty percent. Charlie: less conscious than Don by one hundred percent. Charlie: in more trouble than Don by about a thousand percent.

_Hah. Beat that, brother mine_.

Don carefully lowered his brother into a shallow depression by the side of the road, making certain that the bushes would cover him enough so that the mathematician couldn't be seen by a car casually passing by. Chances were pretty good that anyone driving along this road would be an innocent bystander, but under the circumstances Don wasn't willing to take a chance.

There was something that he could take a chance on: his walkie-talkie, and his cell. If he could get hold of someone official at the Nine Oaks Lodge, he could instruct them to come pick them up, mercenaries be damned. Cell first; Don flipped open the small unit and looked at the distressing number of bars indicating that the nearest cell tower for carrying the communication was located on the opposite side of the mountain. No hope there. Don tucked it away, wondering how the electronics had managed to survive all the mud that he'd been involved with over the past several hours, and tried the walkie-talkie.

_Static_. Mostly; Don thought he heard someone on the other end. He'd need to move another several yards to try again, and the need was great. One more check on Charlie—his brother had already passed out in his nest of leaves and blanket of shrubs—and Don stepped out onto the roadway.

No vehicles, and that was disappointing, too. Hitching a ride would work as well or better than contacting his people at the lodge. He listened as he walked: nothing.

He tabbed on the walkie-talkie, grateful that the units were standard issue for any team planning to conduct a mission in a place like this. Cell phones were great for routine communication but they had drawbacks, too, and service in tower-starved areas was a big one.

Don tried again. "Eppes to Murphy. Murphy, you hear me?"

Static. Then—"Murphy here. Don, that you? Where are you guys?"

"Get out your map, Murphy. I hit a road, and I need a pick up, bad. _Fast,_ Murphy. What's your situation there?"

"Under control. All the mercs took a hike into the back, down the mountain, except for the two that we nabbed first thing. Don't think we're going to catch 'em, Don."

"We got a few," Don told him grimly. "They tried to take us out. What about the researchers?"

"All of 'em are on their way to the nearest hospital, escorts alongside. Staff from the lodge, too. Help just arrived, like five minutes ago. Took their damn time about getting here; something about mis-communication."

"At least they arrived, and can help. Can you locate me?"

"Give me a few. I'll see if Eye in the Sky can find you." Murphy went off the air, and Don tried to look noticeable, standing in the middle of the road where there were fewer trees.

Murphy came back on. "Wave your arms."

Don obliged.

Another couple of moments. "Got you. We'll be there," and Murphy consulted his map, "in about twenty."

Not bad. The roads up here didn't cross frequently, and traveling in straight lines wasn't about to happen. Twenty minutes? The Eppes boys could do that, easy. They had just done several hours of hard.

Help was on the way. First things first: Don would get Charlie taken care of, loaded onto whatever vehicle Murphy had commandeered, and then he'd send out additional troops to help Colby and Ian with the remaining mercenaries. It didn't matter what Murphy had said; Don knew better. Those mercenaries hadn't been trying to escape. They'd been after Charlie. The fact that the FBI was getting in their way only made it more interesting.

Don returned to his brother, taking another moment to survey their surroundings. This was a good place to wait. They were located at a bend in the road, which meant that Don could see for almost half a mile in each direction. The sides of the road were tree-lined and bush-covered. No one would know that they were there until Don stood up and waved his team down, and that would only work in his favor. If a vehicle came up the road that Don didn't recognize, he didn't need to flag it down. _Should'a asked Murphy if he was sending the FBI van or something that he grabbed from the parking lot._

Charlie was awake—well, half awake. The eyes were open, but dazed. Recognition took entirely too long, and Don felt uneasy. Was the fast and easy twenty minutes going to be too long for the man? Not that Don had any choice in the matter. Twenty minutes was how long it was going to take, assuming that Murphy's estimate was correct.

Don studied his brother's face, not happy at the all too obvious lines of pain that creased the ordinarily smooth features. "It's okay, buddy," he told him, brushing the dark locks of hair off of his brother's face, the individual strands held close together by mud and sweat. "Help is on the way. They'll be here soon."

Charlie nodded, a stiff little acknowledgment of Don's words. "Good," he whispered, closing his eyes. Then he whipped them open. "Don! The others! Professor Husinger—"

"All safe, buddy," Don interrupted. "We got to them in time. It's just you I'm worried about," he added, marveling at how true it was. _Not just as my assignment, Chuck. You're my brother. Never thought I'd be thinking that, not the way I felt about you, growing up._

Charlie started to shake again. "Who were those people?" he asked, his voice barely above a harsh whisper. "They brought in guards, after we got there…"

"Yeah. They suckered you in, treated you like every other high end entrepreneurial business, and then brought in the big guns when it was too late for you to back out." Don knew that for a fact. The question would be: was it DarkSeas behind it all, a newly minted AutoDyne that had been created as a cover up for DarkSeas—or something altogether different? There were too many pieces for Don to try to weave together at the moment, and too many missing parts.

More shaking. "Cold," Charlie told him, trying to force his voice in something approaching normal. "You wouldn't happen…to have…a furnace around, would you?" His teeth were chattering.

Shock, Don diagnosed. The wonder was that it hadn't happened before. Or maybe it had, but Don and company had been too busy to notice. _Priorities, Eppes: dodge the bullets first, cope with the broken leg next_. He slipped his hands under Charlie's arms to draw his brother up against his chest, ignoring the hiss of pain that Charlie couldn't control. He wrapped his arms around Charlie, feeling the warmth from his chest seep into his brother's cold body.

"Thanks," Charlie murmured, unable to do anything more than shiver.

It would work. They had twenty minutes before the FBI van showed up, and staying quiet and hidden was the priority. Don could use the time to try to warm his brother as much as possible.

* * *

Ian frowned. "There are only four of them here."

Colby finished strapping the rope around the wrists of the smallest mercenary. The man's ankles had already been hobbled, and tethered to the nearest tree just to make things difficult for the prisoner. Colby understood immediately what the sniper was referring to. "Yeah. There were eight of them, weren't there?"

"Ten, originally. I took out two, first thing."

"So where are the other four?"

"Good question, Granger."

"Don't think I like the answer."

"Me, neither."

"Shall we see if we can dig up a better answer?"

"Yeah."


	15. Last Stand

Don's sense of hearing was his greatest ally at the moment. Vision was limited to peering over the top of the gully where they were hiding, and poking through the brush prevented others from seeing them. The air was cold around them, and Don himself was shivering. He'd removed his own mud-caked jacket, turned it inside out so that the bright white letters FBI weren't visible, and tucked it around Charlie.

His brother's breathing was the most distinct sound that Don heard at the moment, comfortingly regular. There was a rattle in the back of the man's throat that he didn't like, but not liking it and doing something about it were two entirely different topics. There was the occasional trill of a songbird, warning another bird out of its territory, and a few crickets and the like chirping away, but for the most part it was quiet. It was mid-afternoon, despite what the height of the sun told him, and most of the smaller forest creatures were asleep.

Too quiet. Don frowned. He expected the mountainside to be quiet, but things had gone more silent than they had some ten minutes previously. It made him nervous. When things were calm, birds and bugs got noisy. When something large approached—say a wolf. Or a mercenary—the birds and the bees tended to shut up.

This was not good.

The plan had been for Colby and Ian to draw off the mercenaries while Don dragged Charlie off the trail and directly up to the road. It was the shorter, harder trail and one that the mercenaries wouldn't expect them to take, not with Charlie injured as he was.

There was only one answer, and one that Don didn't like: the mercenaries had a brain among them as devious as Don's. Somehow one of them had figured out that the Eppes boys weren't taking the sensible route, weren't fleeing along the jogging trail that would lead back to the Nine Oaks Lodge.

Okay, time for a little more deviousness. Staying where they were wasn't about to work. In this ditch they'd be hidden from the casual eye, but for anyone searching for a hidden mathematician, Charlie Eppes would stand out like a sore thumb.

Don looked around, looked for better cover. There was precious little to be found—okay, that boulder surrounded by a grove of trees looked to be the most defensible. It wasn't as hidden, but that defense wasn't going to work any longer. The mercenaries were almost upon them, and Don was going to have to pull out all the stops. There was a good chance of gunfire in the next few minutes, and Don wanted something that would stop a few bullets.

He shifted his brother up to a sitting position, and Charlie murmured in protest.

"Gotta move, Chuck," Don told him.

Charlie opened his eyes. "What's going on?"

No better way to say it. "They're coming after us," Don said. "This isn't the best place for a last stand."

"Last sta—" Charlie swallowed hard, pushing down the ever-present ache in his leg. He took a deep breath. "Help me up."

Game as ever. Always ready to plunge into a problem. This might not have been the typical problem for his brother-the-math-genius, but nobody could accuse Charlie Eppes of not being willing to try. Don felt proud of his brother—and scared. There was one gun between them and only one man capable of firing it. What would happen if some mercenary got lucky and plugged Don?

It would be all over, and the only good thing would be that Don wouldn't be around to answer for the consequences.

Don slung Charlie's arm across Don's back, hauling him to his one good leg. Charlie stifled a groan, but the leftover noise cut through Don like a knife. This shouldn't be happening, not to Don's brother, not to Don's assignment—it just _shouldn't_.

It was. Don dragged Charlie across the twenty yards to the more obvious but more defensible rock outcropping, easing him down to the cold ground.

Charlie was pale and white, more beads of sweat popping out across his face. He looked bad, Don decided. He'd look worse if the mercenaries got him. Don pulled around the rifle that he'd slung across his back and checked his ammo. A fair amount, but not enough. No amount of clips would be enough because there was only one of Don and who knew how many mercenaries? Don would need to watch nearly three-quarters' worth of a circle. The only safe place would be the boulder that Charlie was leaning against.

Hell of a position to find himself in.

* * *

"Here." Ian indicated the break from the jogging trail. He rose from a squat. "They started up here, picked up Don's trail ten yards above."

"How far?" There was no question for Colby that the sniper was accurate.

Ian shrugged grimly. "Too far."

"Let's hustle."

* * *

"You! You there, behind the rocks!"

"What do you want?" Don yelled back. _As long as they're talking, they're not shooting._

"All we want is the professor. You can walk out of here with your skin intact."

Right. Like they wouldn't shoot him in the back, even if he was willing to leave Charlie behind to their tender mercies. Don had already seen how this group operated. They sacrificed two of their own to stop David and Colby en route, and they'd sacrificed another two at the lodge to slow down the FBI agents. These were mercenaries with brains, and mercenaries who wouldn't leave their fellows behind if what had happened at the local station was any indication—was it only yesterday that they'd smashed up David's car and David along with it? A few hours later a few mercenary friends had assaulted a federal office and pulled out the remaining mercenary before he could talk. This was a group with a serious business sense.

But they were talking to Don right now, which meant that more time was being spent, more time for Murphy and the rest of the FBI to arrive with superior firepower and a hell of a lot of attitude. Don was willing to keep talking for the next hour. Hell, he'd start explaining the Eppes Convergence himself if it would help.

How many were there? At least one: the guy doing the talking. Don peered between the boulders and saw the talking guy had someone next to him. There was a glint of metal some ten yards around to the right, and that meant a third merc. Any more? Yeah, a fourth was trying to stay silent and creep around to the left. Don would have to watch out for that one. If he snuck around far enough, he'd be able to come at Don from behind and take him out before Don could say 'boo'.

Much as he'd like to, Don couldn't shoot first. Some smart-ass lawyer would try to make a case for self-defense if Don should try that, and get those mercs off scott free for killing both Eppes. On the other hand, a shot would bring Colby and Ian running. On the third hand—wasn't he running out of hands by now?—running straight up the mountain with a lot of trees and bushes in the way meant that Colby and Ian would arrive just in time to wave bye-bye to a group of mercs hauling off a half-dead mathematician. And, oh yeah, there'd be the corpse of a very dead FBI agent lying on the road. Mustn't forget that.

Talk. Shout back. Delay. "How do I know that you won't shoot me as I walk away?" Don winked reassuringly at Charlie. _Not about to do that, bro_.

"We don't want you. We want the math guy." There was a pause as the merc tried to come up with more arguments. "We aren't looking for a murder charge."

_You've already got one, genius. You murdered your own guy, right in front of me, when you and your guys took out David Sinclair's car and tried to take out David and Colby along with it. Remember that? I do._

Stall for time. "I don't know." Don tried to sound indecisive.

"You really want to die for this guy? What's he to you?"

_He's my brother. You don't realize that, do you?_

"All right," Don called back, "but we do it _my_ way. Hear me? My way."

"What's your way?"

Don held back from his answer for as long as he could. Every second counted now, every moment a moment more of life and a chance for Murphy to arrive with reinforcements. He strained to listen for sounds of an approaching vehicle. Where was the man? How long could twenty minutes take? Don looked at the time on his cell, the window smeared with mud. It had already been twenty minutes. It was time.

Don took a deep breath. "I want all of you out in the open, where I can see you. I want your guns on the ground."

The mercenary pretended to consider. "I can do that."

_Good. Waste more time. Murphy, where the hell are you?_

Three men edged out into the open, onto the black pavement of the road next to them. Each of them held one hand in the air, the other hanging onto a rifle that had seen recent use. Don's gut tightened. Mercenaries, yeah, and good ones. These were not cheap rent-a-soldiers. These were high class grunts who were worth every penny to their bosses, and he was up against them.

There were only three. Each one carefully laid his weapon onto the tarmac and backed away, doing as Don instructed.

Don's turn. Waste even more time. "I'm still waiting for your fourth man," he called out. _I'm real glad you tried to fool me. I can wait forever for you to get your act together_.

The lead merc frowned, and nodded. Hands still high in the air, he gestured for the fourth man to withdraw from his position and join the rest of the mercenaries.

Show time. Don rose from his position behind the boulder with Charlie and emerged onto the open road where the four men waited. This was it. He could feel Charlie's eyes boring into his back, terrified. Each of the mercenaries was watching to see what Special Agent Don Eppes would do.

Don approached the four men, his own rifle ready in his hands. "Back off," he ordered. "I want you away from your weapons. You can have the math guy when I'm safely out of here."

"You got it." The lead merc motioned to the other three, and they backed away from their guns. One man looked grim at the prospect of road dust getting into his pride and joy, but his training held. He obeyed his leader. The mercs were getting what they wanted.

Yes! Don edged forward, watching each of the four for any movement that suggested that one or more was going for his rifle, or perhaps for a handgun tucked under a shirt. Knives in a calf sheath? All but a given for these dudes, but knives were for a closer style of fighting than Don intended to allow. He waited for them to step further away from their weapons. "A little more, gentlemen. I don't want to get shot in the back on my way out of here."

Five feet. Ten. Don advanced, and the mercenaries retreated, farther and farther away from their weapons. This was going to work. They expected Don to sidle past them, to scurry off along the roadway and leave Charlie behind for the mercenaries to carry off into the night. After all, there were four of them and only one of Don. They expected that Don, after a suitably long period of time, would call for back up, telling his FBI superiors that he had arrived too late to recover the mathematician. They expected the story to be that the mercenaries had out-maneuvered the FBI field team.

They were wrong.

Don made certain to look as though he were going to slip past them, preparatory to running down the road in case one of the mercenaries had the bright idea to send a bullet or two his way. Each merc had his hands in the air, watching Don closely, confident in their superior numbers. The numbers told the story: Don couldn't win. Four to one.

Don had lived with numbers all of his life, and he knew exactly what they meant. He had, however, spent a large part of his formative years dodging the implications of numbers, figuring out ways to get around the boy math genius that he was forced to grow up with. Don knew numbers. He also knew what numbers couldn't tell him: deceit.

Don's escape route took him right to the rifles that the mercenaries had reluctantly allowed to fall to the ground. He kept his own rifle trained on the group of four, trying to make it look as though he was afraid of them. It didn't take much acting. He _was_ afraid of them, afraid for himself and afraid for Charlie.

Don stepped one more yard to the left, feeling the toe of his hiking boot touch the barrel of one of the rifles. He was there. Keeping his eyes on the mercenaries, he shifted his own rifle so that it was couched in the crook of his elbow, ready to open fire if they should try to rush him.

The mercenaries were watching Don as closely as he watched them. They continued to step backward for each step forward that Don took, acknowledging that the FBI agent was going to leave the mathematician behind for them to grab and hustle away down the mountain.

_Okay, Murphy. Now would be a good time to come roaring 'round the bend with a bunch of my friends, all armed with Glocks and the like_.

_Waste time. Waste time_. Don picked up one of the rifles and cracked it open, flipping out the clip.

"Hey," one of the mercenaries objected. It was his rifle.

"You got a problem with me making sure that I'm getting out of here alive?" Don pushed back.

"No, he doesn't," their leader growled, shoving a glare at the offending merc. The glare was for the merc. The attitude was for Don. "You keep moving."

_Right. Just as slow as I can. Yo, Murphy? _Don slid his hands around the second rifle, feeling the cold barrel but keeping his gaze trained on the mercenaries, removing the clip by feel. How much more slowly could he move? Was that the sound of the FBI van in the distance? No; if it was, it would be getting louder. Damn. _Murphy, hurry it up. We got people here who need you!_

Don reached for the third rifle, and—

_Click_.

Don froze. He knew that sound, and knew that it shouldn't be coming from that direction.

It was the sound of a rifle being deliberately cocked, by a _fifth_ mercenary perched in a tree across the road with a bird's eye view of the scene and a direct and easy shot. The sound was meant to be heard. It was meant to be heard by Special Agent Don Eppes, shortly before his unfortunate demise on the country road located some twenty minutes away from the Nine Oaks Lodge. It was going to be the last sound that he ever heard.


	16. Fake Out

_Click_.

There was no way that Don would be able swing his rifle around to get off a life-saving shot to protect himself. It was all over, all but the final agony, gasping his life's blood out onto the road for his brethren to find. The mercs had won. Murphy wasn't going to get here in time. The mercenaries would get Charlie, and the pass code in Charlie's brain, and the plans to the world-altering weapon that his brother had helped devise…

"Hey!"

Charlie, on his knees—knee, rather. Singular. One knee. Arm behind him, hand grasping a fist-sized rock. Launching that rock toward the fifth mercenary with a power far greater than his kid brother ought to possess.

Amazing what a little adrenalin could do. The rock flew through the air. It didn't hit the fifth mercenary, but it shook the branch he was perched on just enough so that his shot went wide.

Not complaining. Don shoulder-rolled behind a protective tree and took one shot, _feeling_ for the direction more than aiming.

_Blam!_ The mercenary yelled, toppled from his branch onto the tarmac, hanging onto his rifle in desperation.

No time. The other four mercs were already scrambling for their own weapons. Two of the rifles were still loaded, and it only took one to make this whole exercise a fruitless one for the FBI.

Four rifles grabbed. Don fired wildly, missed completely. Two mercs shot back at him, the other pair jamming the clips back into their guns. Don fired once more, saw his bullet bounce off of the boulder the merc was hiding behind.

All over.

He'd gambled, and lost. Murphy was going to get here too late.

_Blam!_

Another direction! Another rifle, and it wasn't from the mercenaries!

"FBI! Throw down your weapons!"

_Colby_. Bless the man.

And Ian. "Next shot goes through the back of your heads, gentlemen. And I _don't_ miss what I aim for."

All over. For certain, this time.

* * *

There was a certain satisfaction in Ian's voice. "Throw down your weapons, gentlemen. Hands behind your head, fingers laced."

"And on your knees," Colby added grimly. "Don, you okay?"

"Just dandy." The shakes were starting. Aftershocks, Don called them. He'd been through the big one, now these were just the little tremors that were left over. He tightened his fingers on his own rifle, willing himself not to drop it. Dammit, not now! This scene was far from secure.

Colby was changing that status. Two sets of handcuffs were already applied, and Colby was looking for more. "Don, you still got your bracelets?"

"Yeah." Remarkably, they were still there, tucked behind his back. Don tugged them out and tossed them to Colby, afraid that if he tried to take a step he'd fall flat on his face. "You're gonna need rope for the last two."

"Yeah, well, that's in short supply, boss. We used it up on the other four, down the mountain." Colby snapped Don's cuffs onto another of the mercs. "You got any in your back pocket?"

"Nope." Yeah, his knees were shaking enough to register on the Richter scale. Charlie! What about Charlie?

"Use their belts, Granger," Ian directed. "Hope you gentlemen have pants that won't fall down," he added. "Eppes, you'd better sit down. Don't want your piece going off accidentally. Where's Charlie?"

"Over here," Charlie called from behind his covering boulder. Charlie's voice was shaking as much as Don's knees. It wasn't a sound that Don liked, and Don tried to move toward his brother to help. He took a step.

Which was when the pain flared in. Fire licked across his shoulder, arrowed into his chest, and faded out somewhere high above his head. Vision went, too, floundering in a white nova of sparkling light.

"Don! Don! Don't try to get up."

Hell, how had he landed flat on his back in the middle of the road? Colby loomed over him, eyes big and worried.

There was someone that Don was even more concerned about. "Charlie!" he tried to say, dismayed that the name came out only as a mere croak.

"He's okay, Don. Better'n you right now, in fact." Colby pushed him back down onto the cold hard ground. It barely took one hand.

He felt rumbling beneath him, the road shivering. What—?

"Van's coming, Don."

_Right. Little late, Murphy. Remind me to remind you of that. Crap, this hurts!_

The road stopped rumbling, and suddenly there were feet all around. Don felt extraordinarily out of control, and that hurt just as much as his shoulder. "Charlie," he tried to croak once more. Couldn't they understand that Charlie was who this was all about? Never mind the fact that the man was his brother. Dammit, the mathematician held the key to that damn weapon! Show a little respect for national security, for Pete's sake!

Colby got it. Colby knew how important Charlie was, and Don was grateful that he'd let the agent talk him into allowing him to come along, banged up arm and all. "Ian's got him, Don," Colby murmured into his ear. "Ian'll watch out for him."

Yeah, that was good. The man wasn't a bodyguard, but Don defied the world to get past the sniper. Charlie would be okay. Don could relax.

Mistake. Relaxing meant letting his guard down, letting the tension relax, and that…meant…he…was…going…under…

* * *

Buzzed. There was no better word for it: buzzed. Thoroughly, completely, totally high on prescription narcotics. Driving was out of the question, which was why it was his father driving Don back to the hospital to check on Charlie instead of Don driving his father.

Technically, he was off duty. He'd turned in his weapons, as per regulations for an agent on medical leave, but that was going to be temporary. The docs had already promised him that he could go back on light duty tomorrow if he felt up to it, and Don fully intended to reclaim everything that was his.

In the meantime, he'd have to be satisfied with allowing his old man to taxi him back and forth. Don blinked, trying to persuade the cars passing by to stop dodging back and forth in front of his eyes. If this kept up, he'd end up tossing his cookies before they arrived at the hospital. Damn pain-killers. He'd take another set tonight and toss the rest. He'd live with the pain if it meant a clear head.

Charlie was coming out of surgery; that's what David had said. _Not fair_, Don snarled under his breath, hoping that the words hadn't slipped out into the open air where his father could hear them. Not fair that David was back on duty, and Don wasn't. David had had concussion, for cripes' sake! All Don had was a little hole in his arm. Tiny little scratch that would heal up before they took the band aid off. Didn't matter that it hurt like hell. Didn't matter that the docs insisted that he carry his arm around in this stupid sling.

"If I had my way, you'd be out for a week," his father commented dryly, braking to avoid the little two-seater making an illegal left turn in front of them. Alan didn't bother with the horn; it would be wasted on the driver in the car in front of them.

Crap; that meant that he really had said something out loud. No help for it now. "Got too much to do, Dad."

"And you've got good agents to do it," Alan reminded him. "David's back, Colby's dancing around and ready to shoot anything that moves, and Ian? Well, your friend there just stands around eyeballing everyone with that stare of his, making everyone nervous. Including me, I might add. Who knows? I might be trying to kidnap my own son and sell him to the Russians."

"The Russians are our friends. This week. I think."

"Whatever." His father dismissed that argument. "The fact is, you need to stay home and take it easy for a few days. Charlie's not going anywhere, not until the docs let him out of the hospital, and then he's still not going anywhere after that. Six to eight weeks, the doctors say, for his leg to heal."

During which period of time there would be a bunch of highly motivated mercenaries somewhere out there just waiting to get their hands on Charlie and extract the final pass code. Yeah, there was a reason that Ian Edgerton hadn't yet been recalled to Washington for another assignment, and that reason was coming out of surgery.

David met the pair in the hospital lobby. "Hey, Alan. Hi, Don." He took a second look. "Don, you look beat. You sure you want to be here?"

"Yes, I'm sure," Don growled. "I missed my morning coffee."

"No, he didn't," Alan said complacently. "Don is always like this when he has to take drugs. I remember when he took out his shoulder, sliding into third base, when he was fourteen. He was lucky that it wasn't his throwing arm. He could have—"

"I'm sure David isn't interested, Dad," Don interrupted.

The twinkle in David's eye suggested otherwise, but his second in command took it in stride. "They're moving Charlie into a room right now. Doc said everything went well. He's got some pneumonia, leftover from being out on the mountain for so long, but it's responding to antibiotics. Doc thinks Charlie'll be ready to go home in two days."

"Two days? Damn hospitals, keep throwing people out before they're ready."

David was unperturbed. "Works in our favor, Alan. The hospital is a tough place to keep people safe, and we're still waiting for Charlie to wake up enough to give us his pass code. Once we get that, we'll have the plans to the weapon they devised, and the danger will be over. Our research and development people will be weeks ahead on devising counter-measures." He punched the button for the elevator.

"Wonderful." Alan Eppes was far from appeased. "Me, the original hippie, with a son who develops weapons and the other who works for The Man."

"Be fair, Dad." Don felt he had to defend Charlie. "Charlie thought he was working on a type of weapon that would keep people safer. He told me that, as we were bringing him in. It was going to take out minefields and suicide bombers, not look to wage war on people."

"Umph." Alan stepped off of the elevator, taking in the half dozen armed FBI agents positioned along the hall. His eyes went cold. "David, I hope this is just overkill. You don't really need all these agents."

Ian met them, and heard Alan's concern. "Orders from Washington, Mr. Eppes," he said, taking Alan's hand to shake it. "There are some pretty upset politicians back there." He glanced around the area, not in response to anything more than habit. "Nobody knew that this was going on until it hit the fan. And, bottom line, we don't have a good handle on this thing that Charlie and the other professors came up with. My people have talked to Professor Jeter and the other two, and what they've heard is making them sweat."

Don managed to keep himself from reacting. Other two? There had been five, total. Charlie was one, the computer professor was two, and three more. David met Don's eyes, and shook his head almost imperceptibly.

Alan never picked up on the exchange. "Which room is Charlie's?"

David gestured. "This way. I'll go in with you."

Don nodded, grateful that his head didn't fall off his shoulders. "You go ahead, Dad. I'm going to grab a cup of coffee and catch up on the case with Ian. _Another_ cup of coffee," he amended, before his father could put in another jab.

Ian waited until Alan and David had disappeared into the hospital room where Don supposed that his brother lay. Then Ian took Don by the good arm, leading him toward a back room. He grabbed a mug on the way, filling it with black coffee and pushing it toward Don.

Don sipped at the stuff gratefully, feeling it burn its way down his throat and feeling the cobwebs disappearing from his brain at the same time. "Thanks." He looked around. "Uh, are we supposed to be back here? This looks like the employee lounge."

"It is." Ian indicated for Don to sit at the table, taking another chair for himself. "I make friends where ever I go. You know that, Eppes."

Don grunted, choosing not to reply. He sipped again at his coffee, instead. The stuff tasted decent.

Ian noticed. "Yeah. Let's just say I chipped in for some high end coffee beans," he said, leaving no doubt in Don's mind that those 'high end coffee beans' were part of what was allowing Ian to sit here with Don in relative privacy.

Not the biggest thing on Don's mind. He set the mug down on the table. "Give."

"Washington's terrified. From the descriptions that Jeter, McKenzie, and Whimsey are giving, this thing has the potential for revolutionizing not only our defensive capabilities, but our offensive ones as well."

Don frowned. "Just what the hell did Charlie and the others create?" His dorky little brother? Had the world gone mad?

Ian shook his head. "Even I don't know, Don. They won't tell me, either." He snorted. "I listened to what those three said, and all I heard was 'world-shaking'. It must have meant something to Washington, though. They're scrambling a squad of army types from the nearby base to escort Charlie to the military hospital. Washington thinks that they can protect him better there."

Don snorted. "We've had him back in our custody since last night. What's this 'scrambling'? It's been more than twelve hours."

Ian shrugged. "Not my department, Eppes. You want to complain? Take it to your congressman. Oh, wait; you can't. He hasn't been cleared to know the details of Charlie's weapon."

Still, Charlie was his brother. It had taken the two of them a long time to get to the point of being family, and Don wasn't about to throw all that effort away on a whim. He pushed forward on the other point that was bothering him. "You said Jeter and the other two. There were four other researchers beside Charlie, Ian. What happened to the other one? What was his name?"

"Husinger. Walter Husinger," Ian said grimly. "No, I didn't forget him, and that's the other problem, Don. He's dead."

"Dead! How—?"

"They tortured him," Ian said bluntly. "Those bastards put the screws to every one of those professors, to get the pass codes out of them. Charlie would have been next, if he hadn't escaped. The others caved pretty quick, knowing that without Charlie's piece their own would be worthless. Husinger held out, thought that a second line of defense was best; that's what Jeter told us. Husinger died shortly after your boys got him to the hospital."

"Damn," Don breathed, sitting back heavily in his chair. "Do we know if the mercenaries got Husinger's pass code?"

"They did," Ian told him. "Husinger confirmed it, shortly before he died." He tightened his lips. "He did his best to hold out. A real hero."

Don knew what that meant. "So all they need is Charlie, and they have the plans to the weapon."

"Yeah," Ian agreed, "but _we_ need not only Charlie's pass code, but we need him to decipher what Husinger's was, as well."

* * *

At the moment it didn't matter that he didn't have a clue what the voices over his head were saying. Charlie was comfortable, and that was a sensation that he hadn't experienced for a very long time.

Let's see: there was still an ache in his leg, but frankly, he didn't care. His leg seemed to belong to someone else. It was heavy, and aching, and he pitied the poor sod that had to cope with it. There were at least three other small stinging hurts, two on his arm and one on his face, but again: Charlie didn't care. Nasty, plastic mask over his nose and mouth? Hah: not important. And he was _warm_. That was joy in itself. He had been shivering with cold for all of last night, stuck in the remnants of the mudslide. Or maybe it was the night before? He supposed that he ought to be giggling with joy right about now, but at the moment it seemed like too much effort.

Couldn't figure out what the voices were saying, but that also didn't matter. He recognized them, and that was good enough. There was his father, and Colby, and David. There were a couple more, mostly female voices that belonged to the hands that were moving him around, but what the hey? Charlie didn't have a care in the world.

"He'll come out of it fairly soon," one of the female voices promised, and a male voice added, "Let me know when he does. He'll probably need some morphine at that time."

_Is this what morphine feels like? Lovely stuff_.

Someone bent over him to speak directly into his ear; Charlie could feel the warm breath on his cheek. "Charlie, it's okay. You're safe now."

_Know that, Dad. Never a doubt in my mind that Don would be coming after me. Wasn't sure he'd get there in time, but hey—that wouldn't have been his fault._

"What's that? Charlie, say again."

_Love to, Dad, but there seems to be disconnect between my brain and my mouth. Don always said it, and now it's come true_.

Someone else replaced his father. "Charlie, it's Colby. Dude, we need you to wake up and talk to us."

_Okay, I'll put it on my agenda for tomorrow. Today I'm thinking—ow! I think I know who that heavy leg belongs to, and it's someone right here in this room. In this bed, in fact._

"Does he know that his is the only missing pass code for those mercenaries?"

"He probably has guessed that."

"You're assuming that he's thinking at all right now."

_Can you all please stop talking over my head as though I'm not really here? Crap, this leg hurts!_

"Someone ask the nurse to step back in. He was right—the anesthesia is wearing off. Charlie needs something for the pain."

"Poor guy."

"Poor us. Washington is going to be breathing down our necks until we get that pass code from Charlie."

"And Husinger's. Don't forget that Charlie set up the cipher."

_What about Husinger?_

_Ahhh…that's better._

_See you in the morning_.

* * *

"He wake up?" Ian asked, re-entering Charlie's room, Don trailing behind.

David looked up. "Briefly. He didn't say anything; he was in a lot of pain. I'm not sure that he even knew we were here."

"He knew," Alan disagreed. "He knew." He tightened his lips, and Don could read his father's thoughts: this was a direct result of The Man's inability to protect its citizens, and one of its more valuable citizens at that. Don cringed inside; he himself was The Man, and that was his brother lying there in that bed. There were lots of tubes and wires circling around Charlie like a cage, and Don was more than certain that he didn't want to know where some of them had gotten shoved into his brother's body. The intravenous lines snaking into the kid's arms were bad enough. There was a great big nasty one carrying something liquid and yellow away into a bag, and Don was pretty sure that a garden hose was going to figure prominently in somebody's next nightmare.

Alan's gaze next fell on the sling that Don had wrapped around his arm. No problems with mind-reading there, either: The Man had gotten both of Alan Eppes's sons banged up. There would be some soul-searching going on tonight for the elder Eppes. Would this have happened if a young Alan Eppes had been just a tad more strident as an idealistic youth? Would the _world_ have been different?

They'd never know. Don allowed himself to be steered to one of the chairs in the room—uncomfortable, but better than the alternative of standing—and settled in for a long few hours of watching his brother sleep. He'd likely fall asleep himself; damn pain-killers.

It wasn't going to happen. One of the FBI guards outside Charlie's room knocked on the door. "Agent Sinclair? Got a Lt. Brown here, U. S. Army. Says he's got orders to escort Professor Eppes to the military base hospital."

"Finally." Colby stood from where he had been holding up the wall. "This place isn't the greatest for defense." His gaze went uneasily toward the window and Don had no trouble following his thoughts: six different locations for a sniper to nest.

Yeah, Colby was right. They needed to get Charlie to a more secure location, at least until he could give them his pass code and decipher the late Professor Husinger's. Don allowed his mind to wander along another path: who was behind this? How had Ian Edgerton arrived on their doorstep? Who had sent the sniper on this circuitous route?

Not important at the moment. Don turned his attention to the soldiers who had come to assist.

Lt. Brown was a large bear of a man, and Don would just bet that he carried the nickname of 'Brown Bear'. It fit. Just like the bear, the brown eyes held more intelligence than one would suspect. There was a large handgun tucked at the man's waist that Don hoped wouldn't have to be used. Out of the corner of his eye Don could see Ian nodding; this was a man who was built for protection.

Lt. Brown sketched a casual salute. "I understand we've got a pick up, gentlemen?"

"That's right." Technically, David Sinclair was lead on the scene. His team leader, Don Eppes, was on the injured reserves, even though Don was sitting on the chair by Charlie's bed. Ian was the honored guest from Washington, and likewise not in charge. David indicated Charlie, sleeping and covered with medical equipment. "That's him. Professor Charles Eppes. You have orders to transfer him to El Toro?"

"I do." Lt. Brown tapped his chest pocket where presumably those orders were located. "I've got a convoy outside, ready and waiting. Stretcher transport, or wheelchair?"

"Better make it stretcher," Colby advised. "You got any oxygen along?"

"We can get that," Brown told him. "Not a problem. Let's get moving, men," he called out to the four soldiers waiting behind him.

"Wait a minute." There was something wrong here. Don didn't know what it was, but all of his instincts were aroused. "Can I see your orders, lieutenant?" What was it that made him suspicious? Don himself didn't know. Don opted for delay tactics while his back brain wrestled with the matter.

Lt. Brown shrugged. "No problem." He pulled a wad of papers out from his breast pocket. "And you are—?"

"Special Agent Don Eppes. SAC Team Leader." Even though he wasn't wearing a gun. Wasn't officially in charge.

Brown handed them over. "You'll find them all in order, sir."

Don looked at them. Not that he was all that accustomed to looking at military orders, but they appeared to be correct. He passed them to Colby; the man was ex-military and would be able to better spot any discrepancies.

Ian peered over Colby's shoulder; he too had been military before joining the FBI. "They look okay, Don." _What's the problem?_

"Don?" Alan Eppes stared at his oldest son, trusting him before anyone else in the room.

Then Don _knew_. He cocked his head. "I think we need to talk to your base commander first."

Lt. Brown gave in without hesitation. "Okay. You want me to call 'im, or you want the number—"

_Blam!_ No warning, just a fist, exploding in Don's face.

Don, however, had been warned. Don had been suspicious. He threw up an instinctive block, just enough to deflect what would have been a knock out punch to something less lethal.

Rocked back. Block the follow up palm strike—a killing strike, designed to push straight through the nose and into the brain.

Offensive: right jab to the jaw. Brown dodged, off-balance. Don went in for another short blow.

Brown had height and weight on him, thought that Don would be an easy target.

He thought wrong.

There was more power in Don's blows than there ought to be, and they were fast and furious. Blow to the gut, one to the chest, three fast ones below the belt. This was not Marquis of Queensbury rules; this was real life and this was a valuable national security issue at stake.

This was his _brother_.

Don had always had upper body strength; it was part of what made him so devastating on the baseball field. He used it now. His arm came out of its sling.

Three more sharp jabs—one hit the sweet spot, and Brown folded, gasping.

Not enough. Haymaker, left jaw.

Brown's eyes rolled up into his head, and he went down.

Still more 'soldiers'. Colby was beating his into submission, trading blow for blow, soaking up the punishment as he dealt out his own. Ian had lured his own target into the corner, out of the way where the sniper could use his own long arms to best advantage. Shit—Ian's opposite number pulled out a knife! Not a problem; Ian bared his teeth, and a knife appeared in Ian's own hand. Blood would be shed.

David had two 'soldiers' pounding on him, and getting the worst of it. Defense was his best offense, to keep the pair busy until someone could come to even the odds.

Someone did. Alan Eppes picked up the chair that Don had been sitting in and waded in. He brought down the chair over the back and neck of one of David's foes, bringing the 'soldier' to his knees.

That established the older man as legitimate fodder for the enemy. Even as Don lunged, the downed 'soldier' went for Eppes, senior. All three crashed into Charlie's bed, next falling to the floor.

Fury made Don's blows more vicious. One, two, three! The man's eyes rolled up, and he was out of the fight.

No post-fight kicks, much as Don wanted to. This was his _family_ that those men had gone after!

No. SAC Leader Eppes was in control. Two of the enemy: unconscious on the floor. Colby's opponent: almost in the same condition. David: not doing so well, and Don moved in to help.

Ian hissed, and out of the corner of his eye Don saw a thin line of red blossom across the sniper's chest. Ian's opponent had scored!

How the hell had this gone so bad so quick? Where the hell was the _real_ army, with _real_ soldiers to protect the national asset lying in that hospital bed?

Ian swiped with his own blade, a move more aimed at increasing the distance between the pair of fighters than for any real hope of doing damage. The 'soldier' stepped back, and slashed at Ian again. Another swipe, another step back. Ian slowly forced himself out of the corner.

Evenly matched: Ian and his opponent. Both had long arms, made longer by knives that each one knew how to use.

Ian had an ace, and he used it.

Slowly, carefully, inch by inch he forced his opponent to back up, to take up more space in the tiny room. Ian had seen what his opponent didn't: Charlie was awake.

It didn't matter that Charlie had been unconscious just minutes ago. No one could sleep through this commotion, and certainly not Charlie. The math professor grabbed whatever was at hand—Don would later discover that it was a water pitcher—calculated the trajectory required to accomplish his mission, and flung it straight at Ian's opponent.

The pitcher struck the 'soldier' on his arm, throwing off both his stance and his attention.

Ian took advantage of the lapse. Two fast steps in. Slice across the wrist. Howl from the pseudo-soldier; knife dropped with a clatter.

Grab the wrist. _Twist_. Ian hauled his opponent into a close hold, arm locked around the man's neck. "I can snap your neck," he snarled into the man's ear.

The 'soldier' knew it. He went limp in submission.

Fight over.


	17. Bait

"_Hell_, no," Don growled into the face of the uniformed man in front of him. "You had your chance. You blew it when those mercenaries got here _hours_ before you did. What the hell kept you?"

Charlie lay limply on the hospital bed, letting the scene wash over him without any real desire or ability to influence the outcome. There was fear pervading the room: fear for himself, for his country and for the world—he'd known it as soon as he'd realized that AutoDyne, the company that had hired Charlie and his colleagues, was a front for something more sinister—and now fear for his father who was currently in the Emergency Department getting checked out.

"He's gonna be okay, Charlie." Colby read the thoughts on Charlie's face. "They're just keeping him overnight as a precaution. He's not as young as he used to be." He grinned. "Sure got plenty of guts. It's easy to see where Don learned how not to back down. David would have been toast if it hadn't been for your father."

That pulled out a weak grin from Charlie. "If you think my dad's tough, you should have met my mom," he whispered to Colby. "'Velvet glove covering an iron fist' doesn't begin to do her justice."

Colby nodded, bending down to catch the words that Charlie could barely get out. "I would've liked that, Charlie. To meet her, I mean."

A squad of four soldiers and their lieutenant had arrived shortly after disposing of the mercenaries. Don had been ready to shoot them on general principles, Charlie decided, since the first try at military assistance had turned out so badly.

Dammit, Charlie wanted to pay attention! What was wrong with him? His thoughts kept drifting away from him, short and sharp phrases floating over his head. Even his eyes turned traitor, slipping closed whenever they thought that Charlie wouldn't notice.

_Might…as well…give up…for now_.

"Your people were notified last night," Don snarled. "How long does it take the US military to grab four soldiers and drive twenty miles?"

"Sir, I apologize—"

"Apologies would look pretty poor if the intelligence that he has locked between his ears got into enemy hands. You think this is a game?"

Don had improved some, Charlie thought sleepily, since they were kids together. He'd never been able to be this piercing as a kid, yelling at something that Charlie had done. Don had always accused Charlie of doing whatever on purpose, just to get Don in trouble. It hadn't been on purpose, no matter what Don thought, but…but…dammit, his thoughts were escaping into the netherworld again.

"Sir, my orders were given to me just this morning, a short while ago—"

"Then I'll be discussing the lack of responsiveness with your superiors," Don informed him testily—and then stopped.

"Don?" Ian stepped up.

Charlie blinked, wishing that his brother wouldn't suddenly turn double, then quadruple, and then back again to a pair. One of Don Eppes was more than enough. Damn morphine. Couldn't they make something to kill the pain without killing his thoughts? Closing his eyes was actually the best way to go. _Ears, do your thing_.

Don had apparently already dispensed his decisions, for people were moving around and for the life of him Charlie hadn't a clue what had been said. _Ears, what happened? Take a nap while I wasn't watching? What happened to the soldiers who were here?_

Then Don was speaking into those ears, his breath hot against Charlie's skin. "Charlie, listen. It's Don."

"'Mm."

"Charlie, we're going to move you from here to some place safer. Okay, buddy?"

"'Mm." _Like I've got a choice, brother mine?_

* * *

No more sling. Don didn't care if the docs recommended it or not, the damn thing got in his way. It had been in his way this morning, when the mercenaries—posing as upstanding members of the U. S. Army—tried to snatch Charlie out from under their noses. They had almost gotten away with it. Don strode down the corridors of FBI Headquarters, sparks flying off of his heels, gritting his teeth. This was going to stop.

Ian kept pace with him, and Don was unhappily reminded of the sniper's own injuries. There was a certain bulkiness around the man's chest, courtesy of a slashing knife not too long ago. Ian spoke. "What tipped you off?"

"What?"

"The mercs," Ian said patiently. "You knew they were fake. How? Their papers looked good."

"Couldn't tell from that," Don replied. "It was the way they acted."

"Eppes, they acted like military. They _are_ military, every one of 'em. Ex-soldiers, now soldiers for hire. How did you know?"

Don kept his mind on other matters, let his mouth take care of the response. "They saluted. The head guy; he saluted me."

"They're soldiers. It's what they do."

Now Don did look up at the taller man. "Not to civilians, they don't. You and Colby, you're ex-military too, but you weren't in uniform and there was no way that they should have known that. But the head guy, the one posing as the lieutenant; when he came into Charlie's room, he saluted. To a bunch of civilians."

Now Ian nodded. "Good catch."

"And there was the other stuff," Don added grimly, "that didn't add up."

"What other stuff?"

Don tightened his lips. "How many transport squads do you know that arrive without equipment? No stretcher or wheelchair, no oxygen, nothing? They think they're going to borrow it from the hospital?" Don snorted. "Not a chance. People who transport the sick, they come prepared and they ask questions about stuff like that before they arrive. No, Ian, this was a group who thought that they could just slip in and out before anyone could stop them. You saw how fast they moved when they decided that faking us out wasn't going to work. We were lucky."

"_Charlie_ was lucky," Ian echoed. "How soon before he'll be able to give us the information we need?"

Don lifted his shoulders helplessly. Killing him, that's what Charlie was doing. Did it as a kid, doing it again as an adult only this time it was with national security implications. "Docs wouldn't say. His own pass code: soon. Figuring out what Husinger's was? You got me." He snorted. "Charlie's the only one with half a chance to decipher Husinger's code inside of a week, since Charlie's the one who devised the cipher. Anyone else would need six weeks just to get the point of where Husinger's code locks in." He shook his head. "No, this is the best way. I _hope_."

"You think this is gonna work?"

"You got a better idea?"

"Short of going into hiding for the rest of Charlie's life? No." Ian let his long arms push open the door to the secure communications room.

The tech inside looked up. "We'll be ready on a secure channel in sixty seconds, gentlemen."

"Good." Don seated himself in the hard plastic chair around the small conference table, Ian taking a spot beside him so that they could both speak into the receiver. "You up for this, Ian? Docs told you to take it easy after doing some fancy embroidery across your chest."

Ian scowled. "I don't like not knowing who to trust, Eppes. Let's get this over with."

The communications room wasn't anything like what the movies and television portrayed. It wasn't large, and it demonstrated the same adherence to budgetary constraints that every other working government agency had to live with. There was no large screen the size of a movie theater and the sole audio speaker was tucked inside a cheap black plastic phone. Don, however, was satisfied with the set up. When it came to a choice between a handgun that worked and a plush seat to park his ass, Don would go for the quality hardware every time. The phone could take a back seat.

The tech signaled to them: the line was open. A male voice came over the airwaves: "Director Bergstrom here. Special Agent Edgerton?"

It was a relatively high-pitched voice for a man, and Don's thoughts automatically pictured someone short and slender, hair buffed to a shine, someone who had advanced through the ranks by smarts in the back room rather than good work on the streets.

Didn't matter. If things went the way Don hoped that they would, Don would never meet the man in person.

"Right here, Director," Ian responded. "Special Agent Don Eppes is with me."

Director Bergstrom was one of the people entitled to tell Ian Edgerton where to go and what to do, and Ian's nod told Don that it was indeed Bergstrom. Next question: could they trust him?

Too complex. Bergstrom had set Ian onto DarkSeas's trail. Someone else had tried to pull Ian off, someone very shadowy and connected with the NSA.

Bergstrom needed to be updated. "Report."

"You know that I tracked Goldwasser to Los Angeles," Ian told the man on the other end of the phone. "He'd been murdered. Execution style; no doubt of intent. The NSA claimed the body."

"Yes, I'd heard that. However, there's a new wrinkle, agents: the NSA did _not_ claim the body."

Don already knew that, and so did Agent Edgerton. That detail, however, had not been shared with Washington. Ian hadn't had the time to do so; things had been moving too quickly for even the briefest of reports. "Come again?"

"You heard me, Agent Eppes. Not the NSA."

"Are you saying that someone _pretending_ to be the NSA came in and stole the body?"

"I would certainly recommend re-examining the documents that they used to facilitate the transfer, Agent Eppes."

"I'll do that." Because it meant that someone had penetrated to the very heart of the Los Angeles branch of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. That in itself was a fearsome breach, and another team was working on it. They hadn't gotten very far. "Who was it? CIA?"

"Unknown, at present. I will inform you if further information becomes available." Bergstrom moved on. "What else do you have? Has Dr. Eppes been moved to the military base yet?"

"Not yet." Don kept his voice grim. "Bunch of mercenaries tried to get him, pretended to be from the base. We're questioning them now. So far they're not talking; not even name, rank, and serial number."

Bergstrom turned cold. "What do you mean, Agent Eppes? Are you saying that there was an attempt to kidnap Dr. Eppes from his hospital room?"

"Exactly what I'm saying, Director Bergstrom."

"A leak."

"Counterfeit NSA agents picked up the corpse. Counterfeit soldiers tried to kidnap the only researcher who can open up the encrypted plans to the technology." Ian made it bald. "We've got a mole."

"Where is Dr. Eppes now?"

"In an FBI safe house," Don said. "I'd better not—"

"Don't tell me," Bergstrom cut him off. "I don't know where the leak is, and until I do, consider all communications as compromised. When will Dr. Eppes be able to give you his pass code?"

"He was injured—"

"I'm aware of that, Agent Eppes. When? Giving us the information will be his best chance of safety."

"As soon as he is awake enough to be coherent, I expect to get his pass code from him. I'll bring it back to Washington immediately." Ian sat back in his chair. "In person," he added. "I won't trust channels."

"Acceptable. Anything more?" It was a dismissal.

"No, sir."

"I look forward to your quick return, Agent Edgerton. Good day."

Don exchanged a hooded glance with Ian. "That go as you expected?"

"Pretty much. You?"

Don tightened his lips. The bait had been put out there, and the next step was to see which fish came around to nibble. "Let's see what goes down at the safe house."

* * *

"Charlie. Charlie, wake up, man. We're here."

Charlie blinked. Dammit, had he fallen asleep again? Not that it had done him any good. He coughed, trying to clear the junk out of his throat and having little success. "Water," he gasped, trying to haul air in through a too narrowed passageway.

"As soon as we get you inside." Colby slid a strong hand underneath Charlie's arm, tugging him from the back seat of the SUV.

Fire flared in Charlie's leg at the movement, stealing his strength from him. It was all he could do to hang onto the big FBI agent and not throw up. Lights danced in front of his eyes, threatening to blind him altogether.

"It's okay, Charlie. You just hold onto me." Colby kept on going, pulling Charlie out of the vehicle to where David could help. He slipped his other hand under Charlie's other shoulder, lifting him bodily out of the car.

David grabbed Charlie's legs. "He's not going to be able to walk, Colby. Let's get him inside. I don't like being in the open. We can get the supplies next."

Next thing he knew, Charlie felt the soft cushions of a sofa beneath him. Strong hands lifted his torso up to lean against one end, the semi-erect position making it easier for him to cough. Pillows supported his head.

"Just pneumonia, Charlie." It was Colby holding the glass to his lips. Charlie greedily sucked at the liquid, marveling at how thirsty he was. "Gotta get that crap out of your lungs. You were stuck in the mudslide for a long time."

The mudslide! A flashback of the whole predicament hit Charlie like a hammer. "Colby! The Weapon—"

"It's okay, Charlie. You're safe." Colby misinterpreted what Charlie's concern was.

"No, the others—"

"Safe."

"The plans—"

"Those guys don't have them," Colby said firmly.

Charlie started to shake. "I know that." He couldn't stop shaking; he commanded his hand to stop rattling and it flat refused. "I know that." He did; he hadn't given his own pass code to anyone, and without that no one would have been able to access the work that the group of five had done. Someone could eventually break into the computer file—what one man had encrypted, another could decrypt, as long as there was enough time—but at the moment the plans to the new technology were safe.

Weak. Too weak. If he tried hard, Charlie thought, he'd be able to roll off of the sofa and fall onto the carpet. Even lifting a single hand seemed more than he could manage. He swallowed, trying not to cough, trying to ignore the tickle in his throat.

"It's the pneumonia," Colby reassured him again. "Give yourself a day or two. Your strength'll come back real quick. Here, drink a bit more water. It'll help."

It wasn't as if Charlie had any choice in the matter. Colby simply did what he wanted, and Charlie was powerless to prevent it even if he wanted to. He was lucky to be alive, he realized. If Don and Colby and Ian hadn't found him…"Where's Don?"

"He'll stop by later." David entered the room from outside, his arms filled with supplies. Mostly food, Charlie recognized, but a fair amount of medical supplies. "Safe house," David told him, knowing that Charlie was still trying to take in his surroundings. "Don thought it was best if you didn't go home tonight."

The shaking started again without Charlie's permission, and he was unable to stop it. Scenes from the recent past surfaced like nightmares. "My dad…"

"He's okay," David hastened to say. "He sure helped me out, back there at the hospital. He's got guts."

"They…"

"Don arranged for protection for him," David read his mind, "even though no one expects those guys to go after him. It's more for everyone's peace of mind."

"Ian…"

"A few stitches." David stayed patient, knowing that the memories were coming through for the mathematician. "It looked worse than it was. They stitched him up in the Emergency Department, and he's already back on the job, more pissed that it happened than hurting. Next?"

Charlie subsided, unable to think of who else had gotten injured on his behalf. He looked around, hoping the tremors in his hands would stop by themselves if he could distract himself.

He was in the living room, furnished, although he could see a staircase at the other end of the room that ascended to the upper level. He presumed that there were bedrooms up there, not that Charlie had any desire or ability to rise from the sofa and check out his assumption. That could wait until later. Peering in another direction showed the kitchen with a couple of doors. One led to the back yard where Charlie could see the afternoon sun streaming in, and the other was an unknown. Basement, perhaps? Probably, although basements weren't common in this part of the world. Too likely to collapse when a West Coast earthquake rumbled through. Through the window he could see a free-standing garage that presumably doubled as a storage shed. Colby had parked in front of it, leaving the SUV outside in the sun to bake.

Closer: the sofa that Charlie lay on wore an olive drab print, something that had seen better days. Not bad for a safe house, Charlie decided. Don had told him stories of the places that he'd been, and the fact that there were no springs sticking up out of the upholstery suggested that the FBI had pulled out all of the stops for the visiting mathematician. There were two overstuffed chairs as companion pieces. The occasional tables, two of them, were of a different sort: they were reinforced, something to be dumped their sides and hidden behind in case of a hail of bullets. Charlie shuddered, cursing himself for feeling afraid. The curtains, too: a soft gauze that prevented anyone from seeing in, and a heavy fabric that could be swiftly closed to keep out any problem telescopes.

This was a safe house, and Charlie was the person they were after. _This isn't supposed to happen to mild-mannered mathematicians_, a little voice inside him wailed, and that started the shaking once more.

David seated himself beside Charlie, taking advantage of one of the chairs. "It'll be over soon, Charlie. Don and Ian have got a lead that they're following up. Right now the best thing for you to do is rest and lie low. Think you can do that?"

_Do I have a choice?_ Charlie only swallowed hard. "I'll do whatever you tell me."

"Good." David glanced over his shoulder, hearing Colby bringing in more supplies. "Listen, there is one thing that we need from you: your pass code. Once we have the details of the toy that you geniuses dreamed up in safe hands in Washington, there won't be any reason for any of those guys to come after you. Get what I'm saying?"

"Won't those people still need my pass code?" Charlie looked up at him. "I mean, someone said earlier that they have the one of the other laptops, too. All they need is my pass code. Won't they still come after me until they get it?"

"Nope." Colby cheerfully inserted himself into the discussion, sitting down in the other chair and placing a laptop onto the coffee table in front of Charlie. "If we have it, we can build it. We've got the engineers and the expertise to turn it out just like that." He snapped his fingers. "Those DarkSeas guys, or AutoDyne, or whatever they're calling themselves today, they don't got the people to do stuff like that. Charlie, if they want to build that device that you guys dreamed up, they're gonna have to go out and hire a bunch of smart people, and that takes time. While they're doing that, we're building it and their customers are getting tired of waiting. So DarkSeas, once we get a jumpstart on 'em, isn't going to bother with this project anymore. Not enough profit in it, and especially if they have to fight with the Feds to do it."

"Oh." Charlie hungrily devoured the sight of the laptop with his eyes. "Is that the one I worked on, at the lodge?"

Colby lifted his shoulders. "You, or one of your fellow geniuses. They all look alike to me."

"Can I…can I see if I can open it up?"

Bait taken. There wasn't a person in the room who didn't understand exactly what was going on.

There was still one catch.

Colby helped to arrange the machine on Charlie's lap, helping him to struggle into a sitting position so that he could work. "Charlie?"

"'Mm?" More attention was focused on the opening dance of the screen warming up.

"Charlie, we only have the pass codes for Professors Jeter, McKenzie, and Whimsey."

"Right. I'll need Walter's—Dr. Husinger's—to get in. When can I have it?"

Charlie missed the look that the two agents exchanged over his head. David was the one elected to speak. "Charlie, that's going to be a problem. We don't have Dr. Husinger's pass code."

"Why not?" Charlie's fingers were already flying over the keyboard, concentrating on opening up the proper files.

Then the implications of what David had said sank in to his consciousness.

Charlie once again couldn't stop the shaking.


	18. Decoy

Don walked deliberately by the front window of the safe house, knowing that his shadow could be seen indistinctly through the gauze that filtered everything from the outside. He checked his watch. "How much longer are we going to keep up this charade?"

"Long as we have to, Eppes. Long as we have to." Ian's voice came in dryly across the comm. link from the house across the street. "You in a hurry to get shot at?"

"I'm in a hurry to get this over with, and my brother and dad back to their own house," Don snapped back without rancor. He settled himself onto one of the chairs where he could observe part of the neighborhood and the street outside of the safe house, wishing that something would happen. "We got SWAT in place?"

"Yes, and I just checked on each one again. For the fifth time, Eppes," Ian added warningly.

"Sorry. I'm not real good at waiting, ya know? Not when I'm playing the target."

"Could'a fooled me, Eppes."

Don let that one go unchallenged. He'd picked this particular safe house for exactly the reason that the sniper liked it: there were plenty of places to hide a SWAT team or two. There was a very good chance that the FBI could finish this case right here, hopefully within the next couple of hours, and that he could return his family to the rest of their mundane life.

He deliberately didn't check on the two other members of his team, the ones guarding the mathematician with the ultra-high security protocol in his noggin and the recently repaired break in his leg. They too were located in a safe house but it wasn't this one and there were exactly four FBI agents who knew where Charlie actually was. The rest, which included every FBI agent in Los Angeles and Washington, thought that Charlie was in this particular safe house with Don, already hard at work trying to download the files on The Weapon. There was a leak somewhere between here and Washington, and of all the things that Don wanted to do, getting his brother killed ranked pretty low on that list.

He wondered how they were making out, if Charlie really was working on deciphering the late Dr. Husinger's pass code at the moment. Probably; Charlie would dive into the problem just to have something to occupy that brain of his. Of course, his kid brother would probably also fall asleep over the keyboard, just as he'd done over his text books, hidden under the bedcovers at night with a flashlight when they were growing up.

_Got somebody a little more deadly than Mom coming after you, buddy. That's why I'm here, playing stalking goat, so that you can recover. Take good care of him, David and Colby._

Ian broke in on the comm. link. "Got a black sedan approaching. Stay alert."

_I'm alert. The rifle is in my hand, with an extra couple of clips on the table_. Don tried to see through the gauze and found it as frustrating as anyone trying to see in. For once, he thought, the FBI had the advantage. Usually the agents were the ones trying to keep people alive. This time if the mercs tried to shoot to kill, they had a good chance of killing the very man they were sent to retrieve, or so they would think. The mercenaries would have to be careful.

The FBI, on the other hand, had no such constraint. All they needed to do was to bring the mercenaries to justice. If a few suspects shot back, then they deserved whatever came their way. Don wouldn't shoot to kill, but neither would he shed any tears over damage done. _These were the guys who were trying to kill me and mine up at the lodge_.

"Not our pigeons. They drove on past."

Don felt the adrenalin ebb. "I'm going crazy in here, you know that," he complained.

"Cheer up. We'll bag these guys, we'll get 'em to roll on their contact, and we'll clean up this mess real fast."

"You forgot to say that Charlie will figure out the remaining pass code by the time we plug the leak."

"Goes without saying, Eppes." There was a brief moment of static. "Uh, he really that fast?"

"Depends on how complex the pass code is."

"So how complex is it?"

"Beats me. We're talking genius level geniuses. That type that make other geniuses go, 'ooh, ahh.'"

"Crap. It could take weeks." More static. "Uh, Eppes?"

"Yeah?"

"This time it's a Hummer, Eppes. This could be it."

"Keep talking."

Ian obliged. "It's slowing down. I see a bunch of guys inside; at least three. How many people fit inside a Hummer?"

"Six, plus a driver."

"You know that?"

"Depends on the model. Drinks gas like beer. There's only three inside? You sure?"

"Nope. Wait a sec. Lemme focus the glasses." More static. "Yup. Only three."

Don did not like to hear that. "What's up with that? Why only three? They think that three is gonna be enough to take down a safe house and extract a living consultant? They crazy?"

"Maybe they're running out of mercenaries."

"Maybe." Don didn't think so.

"They're stopping, Eppes. Get ready."

"Notify the troops."

"On it."

Don could hear Ian switching channels to the all-channel relay. There were now another dozen men, armed and ready, just itching to take a crack at the mercenaries. Don had called in a few favors from LAPD to borrow some of their finest, and their commanding officer had responded with pleasure. "Need a good exercise or two, and you're always turning in the best, Special Agent Eppes. Glad to help out."

No, the mercenaries wouldn't be walking away from this one. The various SWAT team members were checking in with Ian, one by one, all ready and surrounding the house and the neighborhood.

Don had picked this safe house carefully as the target, making certain that the chance of an innocent civilian in the area was slim to none. Two of the SWAT team members had been assigned to preventing the neighbors from venturing out where they could be shot or grabbed as hostages. The place was as inviting a trap as he could make it.

The trap had been sprung.

Proof that the leak was somewhere in Washington. The only people who knew that this safe house was in use and what it was for were Don's team, and Ian. Bergstrom hadn't been told which safe house, but that wouldn't stop a determined man on the inside. Bergstrom would have access to the list of safe houses that the FBI maintained, and could winnow it down from there by sending an undercover mercenary or two to do a drive by and look for signs of life. Don knew it wasn't any of his team or Ian passing the info because if it had, this wouldn't be going down. The mercenaries would be headed for an entirely different location, one that really did hold a recuperating mathematician and his FBI bodyguards.

That left only one possible source for the leak, and it wasn't in L.A.

Don held the rifle in his hands, watching the large blob of a Hummer through the gauze roll to a stop in front of the safe house. There was another reason he knew that it wasn't anyone here in L.A., and it had to do with the discussion he'd had not two hours earlier with Director Bergstrom. Ian Edgerton had picked up on it, too.

Why hadn't Bergstrom asked about Husinger's pass code? Ian's superior had only discussed _Charlie's_ pass code, and that would be a mere second or two of work. The delay there was waiting for Charlie to be well enough to communicate. Bergstrom hadn't cared about the protocol for accessing the dead researcher's work, the protocol that was needed for the good guys to get into the files. Bergstrom had known about the lacking pass code, had been told during Ian's previous report. He just hadn't cared.

He would care now. This was it; this was the lynchpin in the case that would nail Bergstrom's hide to the proverbial wall. Don didn't need the mercenaries to roll on their bosses in order to take Bergstrom down. It would be lovely corroborating evidence, but that was it.

Time to take down some very deserving mercs.

_Blam!_ The first round went through the front window of the safe house, and Don hit the carpet with grim exultation. No doubt about it now: mercenaries in full swing, on American soil.

"Let 'em have it, boys." Ian's voice cracked over the comm. link. "Keep 'em away from the Hummer. Don't let 'em get away."

Gunfire rang out with enthusiasm as the LAPD SWAT fired back at the attackers. The three mercenaries responded instantly, shoulder-rolling to cover.

Don darted his head up over the window sill, just enough to see two mercs trying to make a tree trunk wide enough for the both of them to hide behind and the third pretending that a rhododendron was adequate cover. He could plug all three in the back before they knew what hit them, but that wasn't the point. Don didn't want dead mercenaries. He didn't want the worker bees. He wanted live worker bees who would talk about the hive and the king bee, never mind that his apiary accumen was in doubt.

The gunfire was almost a constant hail, one merc rising to send off a short flurry and the SWAT team enthusiastically demonstrating that their own supply of ammunition was almost infinite—_yo, guys! This is coming out of my budget!_ It was time to end this.

Don used the butt of his gun to push open the window. Sure, it would be more dramatic to smash out the glass but that too would be assigned to his far from limitless funding. He aimed, and waited for a lull in the noise. "FBI! Freeze! I've got all three of you dead to rights."

Each one of the three mercenaries stiffened. Don's voice was behind them; they knew that their backs were exposed. One had a momentary thought of trying to see if he was faster than Don.

"Don't try it," Don warned. "Are they really paying you enough to be a corpse?"

Fight over.

* * *

Colby glanced over at the sleeping figure on the sofa. Charlie had dozed off in spite of himself, a victim of legally prescribed narcotics, head lolling back on the pillows and his breath passing in and out over gently parted lips. Only some of the lines of pain had erased themselves in sleep, Colby decided. He frowned. Don wouldn't like that. Hell, _Colby_ didn't like it; good stuff like that ought to be doing a better job at pain control. All the hospital's fault, he thought grimly. The consultant ought to still be there with a bunch of nurses hovering over him, not passed out on a safe house sofa with a laptop beeping quietly next to him.

All right, so maybe it wasn't the hospital's fault. They didn't specialize in the security of crunched researchers. If a squad of soldiers marched into the lobby and said that they had orders to remove someone likely to get shot at, innocent bystanders and hospital administrators alike would have said, 'take him with our blessing'.

David appeared at his shoulder. "The perimeter's all clear," he reported in a whisper. His mouth too settled in a frown. "Think he's comfortable like that? Maybe we ought to take him upstairs, put him to bed."

Colby considered. "Naw. We wake him, he'll only want to work on the computer again."

"He's going to have a stiff neck." David started forward. "At least let me put the laptop onto the table. You can get one of the blankets from upstairs—"

"David!"

David halted at the alarm in Colby's voice. "What?"

"The laptop!"

"What?" David couldn't understand the concern.

"It's on!"

"Right. Charlie was working on it. It's in hibernation mode."

Colby grabbed his arm. "Man, they're microchipping laptops these days! Security companies can track stolen computers through GPS! The moment Charlie turned that thing on—"

David swore. "Let's move."

* * *

Don glowered. "I don't like it."

"What?" Ian scanned the three mercenaries being led away by members of the SWAT team. "This was a good operation, Don. Nobody got hurt. We took 'em down easy; they surrendered. The interrogation should be a breeze and the D.A.'ll be thanking you for months for handing her such an easy win. Charlie can come out of hiding."

"Not yet." It was crystallizing for the senior FBI agent. "Dammit, Ian, not yet!" Don broke out into a flat run, heading for the Suburban.

Ian stretched long legs to keep up. "Don?"

"There were only three of 'em, Ian!" Desperation was uppermost. "This was decoy, just as much as it was on our side." Don yanked the door open, keys in his hand. "They wanted us to think that they took our bait. This was a distraction, to pull us away from Charlie!"

Ian uttered a word under his breath that Don didn't recognize but knew exactly what the sniper meant. "I'll get hold of Sinclair and Granger, tell 'em to move. You drive."

* * *

"This the place?" The driver hauled the Hummer onto the driveway. Two more jeeps screeched to a halt on the roadway, men spilling out through all doors and heading for the house.

"That's what GPS said." The mercenaries' leader shoved the small device back into the glove compartment. "This is the address." He raised his voice just high enough to be heard by all. "Fast and quiet, men. Remember, we need him _alive_. Dead, he's no good to us."

"The guards?"

"Don't kill 'em unless you have to. They're just doing their job, like us." He pointed his finger. "Go."

They functioned like the well-oiled team that they were. One kicked in the door and dropped, the others pouring over his prone body, guns in hand.

"Clear."

"Clear."

"Not here, captain."

"Upstairs?"

"Clean. Beds untouched."

The mercenary captain didn't bother with curses. He pulled out his cell. "Touching base. Package has flown. Repeat: package has flown."

"Roger that," the cell phone murmured in reply. "Accessing…Package is shown to be moving south, entering the Santa Monica. Intercept at…" the voice trailed off, calculating, "intercept at Alameda."

"Roger. Will intercept at Alameda." The captain waved his arm at his men. "Let's roll."


	19. Hero

"No response." Ian closed up the cell, worry plain to see. "Neither one is picking up." He automatically grabbed at the dashboard as Don hauled the vehicle around a screeching turn. He raised his voice to be heard above the shrieking sirens. "LAPD's on their way, too."

Don didn't answer. There was nothing to be said.

They thought that they'd been so clever. There was a leak, so Don was going to feed false information, pull in some mercenaries that they'd pump to clean out a whole load of dirt. Fool 'em real good—yeah, right. Set up a fake safe house.

Excellent. They'd grabbed exactly three mercenaries who'd already been kept from any real information. Those mercs had been primed to keep Don off guard while the real operation was going down, mercs with instructions to put on a good show and then surrender meekly. How much would they get from a judge for their activities? Didn't matter—Don would just bet that there were already plans to spring those guys and then spirit them off to some other country to spend their wages. No wonder there hadn't been any injuries during Don's operation. No sense in getting yourself killed springing a trap. Don ground his teeth.

How had the mercenaries found Charlie? Neither Don nor Ian had let that leak out during their report to Ian's director, and the only other people who knew Charlie's whereabouts were David and Colby. Don clenched his fists on the steering wheel. He'd sooner mistrust himself. There had to be another explanation! Had they been followed from the hospital? Spotted somehow?

Didn't matter at the moment. They'd figure it out eventually, once they had Charlie safe and sound along with two of the finest FBI agents Don knew. Don refused to entertain any other possibility. "No answer yet?"

"Not from either one." Ian was still trying, hitting the redial key again and again. "How soon?"

"There it is." Another right turn. No need to cut off the equally as large Equinox carrying a soccer mom and half a team of budding young soccer players heading down the street on the other side of the road. Don was savagely glad that the overstuffed vehicle disappeared into the distance. Civilians—especially underage civilians—were not good to have around in a potential firefight.

Colby's SUV was missing from the driveway, and Don's heart froze for a long moment. One or the other agent could have taken it to get more groceries, get more supplies. They could have needed bandages. Someone could have had a yen for pepperoni pizza.

Or it could have been taken by a substantially larger group of mercenaries. Mercenaries who hadn't shown up at Don's bait, because they knew better. Mercenaries who hadn't shown up because Don had gotten outsmarted.

There could be two dead bodies inside, and a missing mathematician.

"Door's open," Ian reported grimly.

Not necessary. Don could see the evidence perfectly well for himself. "Take it slow," he forced himself to say. _Give me a moment before I have to look into Special Agent David Sinclair's sightless eyes, a bullet hole leaking red onto his white shirt_.

_Slow_ wasn't in the SWAT team's lexicon, the men that had followed them to help in whatever way they could. They fanned out along the perimeter of the safe house—the real safe house—where Don had sent his brother. One poked his head in through the front door that was half-torn off of its hinges. "Clear."

No mercenaries.

"Clear."

"Clear."

No bodies? No Charlie?

"Clear."

Where the hell were they? Any of them?

No time to waste. "Put out an APB on Colby's SUV," Don ordered. "Let's get some choppers up in the air, see if we can spot 'em." He started to tuck his cell back into his pocket and out of the way when another call pinged. He looked at the ID screen irritably—then hurriedly flipped it open. "Colby? Where the hell—"

"Taking…fire…"

"Crap!" Don whirled to face Ian. "Trace it _now!_" He turned back to his cell. "Keep this line open, Colby. Where are you?"

He could hear the rattle of bullets flying past across the airwaves. "Santa Monica… South… of Alameda."

"We're on our way." The Suburban's engine was already running. Ian's hand got to the switches to turn on the sirens before Don.

Traffic melted in front of them, not so much from the siren but from the sight of the black monster SUV bearing down on them. Even the horrific Los Angeles traffic bowed to FBI wishes, the number of cars and trucks light for the afternoon. The SWAT team hurtled after them, taking the curves on two wheels and trying to keep up.

Not fast enough. Nothing would be fast enough. Ian kept trying to get more information. "How many, Granger?"

"At least…a dozen…Glocks….Only got one clip left…"

"Make it last, Colby," Don muttered under his breath, taking the turn on two wheels. _Are the others okay? Living?_

The radio broke in. "This is L.A. Chopper Two. Gunfight in progress, Alameda at the Santa Monica. All units in the vicinity proceed to that location."

Ian snatched up the hand unit. "LAPD Base, this is Special Agent Edgerton, FBI. Be advised that one side is ours. Render all assistance immediately."

"FBI Agent Edgerton, we receive your message and will comply. LAPD Base to L.A. Chopper Two: we have a friendly among the combatants. Can you give details?"

"Roger that, LAPD Base. Combatant One is behind a dark blue SUV, hand gun only. Suspect is tall, light hair—"

"Colby," Don muttered grimly under his breath.

"Opponents are eight—no, make that ten—men, varying heights, all with automatic—_Christ, that's a massacre down there!_" The voice from the sky broke off in horror.

Don couldn't feed any more gas to the powerful engine beneath the hood of the Suburban, but he tried. The pedal was flat on the floor, sirens screaming, and every SWAT vehicle behind him was trying to break the sound barrier.

Would it be in time?

"Chopper Two, this is FBI Agent Edgerton. Report on persons accompanying Combatant One."

The observer in the helicopter high above the scene tried to regain his composure. "Uh, that's a negative, FBI. No others noted, FBI. Repeat: single combatant only."

Which meant that David and Charlie were either dead or wounded inside Colby's SUV. It meant that the mercenaries didn't yet have Charlie, because if they did they would have withdrawn from the field of battle with their trophy.

_Faster, faster!_

One block away. Don took the turn on two wheels, coming within a hairbreadth of rolling the Suburban. Sirens screamed.

Chopper Two broke in once more. "Combatants withdrawing!" he reported, a healthy dose of relief in his voice. "Repeat: combatants withdrawing. Chopper Two will track."

Ian jumped in with the big question. "LAPD Base, this is FBI Agent Edgerton. Are the combatants taking anyone with them? Pulling anyone out of the blue SUV?"

LAPD Base consulted Chopper Two. "Negative, FBI. They have not kidnapped anyone from the blue SUV."

Don let out the breath that he hadn't realized he'd been holding. "Tell 'em to track and take 'em down if they can, but to be careful."

"You got it." Ian passed on the message.

"That's a roger, FBI," LAPD Base directed. "All LAPD vehicles pursue the fleeing combatants but do not engage unless there is no chance of civilian casualties. FBI, secure the scene. Medical assistance is en route."

Damn nice of 'em, since that's what Don intended to do, come hell or high water. LAPD knew that, was simply putting a good face on things, making it clear what each department was going to do. Let the SWAT boys go after the mercenaries. It would be the most fun they'd had all year. Don had more important priorities.

He swung the Suburban around the final corner, jamming his foot onto the brakes—and stared.

"Mother of—" Ian broke off.

There were more bullet casings on the ground than Don had ever seen in his life, and that included the time in New Mexico when he'd participated in a raid on a border crossing drug lair. Gunpowder smoke stained the air, rising and sinking in small cloudlets; it stank of fear and hurt. The far brick wall had been scoured free of its graffiti by the barrage of bullets, and in front of it sat a bullet-riddled SUV ready to begin its new life as a sieve. Its back tire decided that enough was enough: the latex wall gave out with a _pop_, and the back end of the SUV sank to the ground.

Nothing else moved.

Don hit the ground running, Ian less than a half pace behind him.

"Colby!" he yelled. The man had to be behind the devastated corpse of an SUV, and Charlie and David had to be there with him. There was no other explanation. There was no other possibility.

Colby was on the ground, propped up by the SUV—or was the agent propping up the equally damaged SUV? Didn't matter; Colby was sitting against the dark blue exterior, one hand still on the door handle that had served as a crutch to prevent him from flopping over onto his face. There was blood everywhere, most of it coming from a dark hole in Colby's side. Even as Don watched, the light dimmed in the younger man's eyes.

"Colby!" Don leaped forward to catch him as he toppled over. "Ian, get the damn medics here _fast!_"

"They're pulling up." Ian knelt and pressed his handkerchief against the wound. It helped, but not much. "Colby, where's Charlie? Where's David?"

Colby's mouth worked. Nothing came out.

"Colby!" Don didn't dare shake the man. There was too little life left in him. "Colby! Where are they?"

"Let us in." The medics pushed forward, shouldering the FBI agents back and out of their way.

"Shit," one said grimly. "Roy, large bore IV. Let's get some fluids into him stat."

The other medic, a competent seeming man, glanced briefly up at Don and Ian. "He one of yours?"

"Yeah."

Lips tightened. "We'll do our best."

* * *

Don sternly commanded his hands—and his voice—not to shake. It was unbecoming to a hard-ass SAC team leader, even one with an agent in surgery fighting for his life and another missing in action.

_Oh, and let's not forget the consultant_, he reminded himself. _Good thing Dad's still in the hospital himself. I don't have to face him until_…Don couldn't think of when.

He could go mope around the hospital and hope for a chance to question Colby, or he could return to the safe house and try to figure out where Colby had dumped Charlie and David.

"You want me to drive?" Ian proved once again that he was a master of mind-reading.

"I'm good." What a lie. He was far from good.

Ian grunted. "Right decision, Eppes. You got good people."

"Yeah." Good people. Especially for missing corpses.

"He'll pull through. He lost a lot of blood, but they can put that back in. He just needs to keep going for a bit."

"Yeah." That's what the docs had told had told Don, Ian listening in. It would be touch and go for the next few hours. If Colby lived through that, chances were good that the man would walk out of the hospital in the next couple of days. If...

They needed to find Charlie. They needed to find both Charlie and David, because where one was, the other was likely to be. David wouldn't abandon Charlie. This was national security. This was a member of Don's team, and no one would abandon a team member. Charlie might only be a consultant, but he'd already proved his worth.

This was Don's _brother_.

"What do you think happened?"

Pieces of the puzzle were clear, just not enough of them. Don grunted. "Colby drew 'em off."

"I kind of figured that. Where'd Sinclair take your brother?"

Don took the wheel of the Suburban, making sure that the sirens were turned off. They didn't need them any more, not under these circumstances. Racing to the scene of the crime wasn't necessary. Forensics had already claimed the site, intent on picking up every single bullet casing they could find from the street around Colby's devastated SUV. Don would just bet that they'd find a few old ones, too, bullets from gun battles from years past.

Ian was sticking to Don's side like glue. Afraid that Don was going to do something stupid? It was a possibility; Don himself recognized that his own stress level was a tad on the high side, and he couldn't even put it down to an extra cup of coffee.

"So where do we start?" Ian pushed.

"Safe house. At the beginning." Don swung out of the parking lot. They didn't need to visit the site of the massacre. Forensics had that covered. Charlie and David weren't there.

Ian approved. "We can track Granger's most likely path, decide where there was a chance that he pulled over and let Sinclair and Charlie out." He considered. "Your brother won't be moving quick, not with that leg of his. They'd look for some place to hide, some place that the mercs wouldn't think to hunt for him. We'll start at the safe house, and we'll use the LAPD Traffic unit to try to track Granger's route. We can check their traffic cameras."

It was a long shot, and both carefully didn't talk about _why_ David Sinclair had failed to call in. That would be a discussion for another time, preferably when SAC Team Leader Eppes had Special Agent Sinclair and FBI Consultant Professor Eppes safe and sound in his clutches. _That's assuming that you can make that happen, SAC Team Leader Eppes. How many other assumptions have you made recently that have been wrong?_

The safe house was unchanged. It looked more than a little forlorn, with the front door kicked in by the mercenaries when they'd arrived looking for Charlie. There was no one inside, Don knew. Forensics was stretched a little thin right now, trying to process the scene at Alameda—Don's thoughts shied away from that, refusing to think about what might happen at the hospital. _Colby will be all right. It's going to turn out to be just a little scrape, and we'll all laugh about it in the morning when we take Colby out for coffee and donuts._

Don refused to look in the sky, afraid that he might see a formation of pigs flying by.

Ian slipped out of the Suburban, treading over to the bushes that grew outside of the front door. He knelt. "They edged up on the house," he reported. "There were a lot of 'em. Maybe a dozen. Anything over eight, and the tracks get mingled pretty bad."

Eight against two. Not even close to fair, but pretty damned effective.

Ian continued to read the story from the clues around him. "They went for loud, probably wanted to startle Sinclair and Granger into doing something stupid." Ian stepped over the transom, careful not to disturb anything. "The mercs jumped inside, screeching and hollering, and found nothing. They cleared the house, just as we did. Wait a minute; they cleared the house, and left in a hurry. Why?"

Ian led the way back out to the curb. "Here's why. I'll bet that they spotted Granger trying to make a getaway. They pile back into their vehicles—they had two of 'em, Don. I've got two separate sets of screeching treads—and they start chasing Granger."

"And Colby leads 'em a merry chase right through the center of L.A.," Don grunted. "So where are Charlie and David?"

Then it hit him. Don straightened up. "Ian, where _are _Charlie and David?"

"Don?"

"Ian, we both agree that Colby took off out of here like a bat out of hell. He was making time, pedal to the metal, with those mercs on his tail. We're thinking that he stopped somewhere to drop off Charlie and David, but how could he? Those mercs were close behind. Colby wouldn't have the _time_ to drop them off without the mercenaries seeing them, and certainly not trying to drag Charlie along. Ian, I don't think that Charlie and David were ever with Colby. I think that Colby was trying to decoy the mercenaries away from here all by himself!"

Ian stared at Don. "You're right. Dammit, you're right, Don. It makes a hell of a lot of sense. Colby draws them off so that your brother and Sinclair can escape unseen." He looked around, doing a one eighty. "So, where are they now?"

"Not far." Instincts honed in Fugitive Recovery kicked in, and Don knew his people. "Not far," he repeated. "Charlie's injured, making worse time than a desert tortoise. David doesn't have any transportation, not at hand, because Colby took the SUV. Where do they go?" he asked rhetorically.

"Doesn't answer why Sinclair hasn't called in," Ian pointed out.

"Yeah, well, we'll figure that out when we find them," Don returned. "They're close by. We'll get LAPD to give us a hand, do a house to house—" He broke off. "There."

"Don?" Ian followed where Don's finger was pointing. "The garage?"

"The garage." Don was never so certain of anything in his life. "The garage." A free-standing building, a trim white door with no windows, for the storage of cars and/or stuff that wouldn't fit into a house. That had been the original intent for the simple edifice, back when the house was new and before it fell into the hands of the FBI for purposes other than raising a family in a nice neighborhood.

Charlie had an affinity for garages. That was obvious; Charlie had set up his very first 'office' as a seven year old genius in the Craftsman garage, and had retreated there ever since. Don headed for it.

He pushed the door open, gun in hand, just in case. Ian trailed behind.

The interior was in worse shape than the Craftsman garage, and covered with dust. There were boxes lining the edges; apparently someone had decided to use the place as a storage shed for boxes of discarded FBI materials. Not good form—the lock wouldn't stop a determined two year old—but that was a different issue. Right now, Don needed to find the consultant before the mercenaries did.

Ian tapped Don's shoulder silently, and indicated the floor. The cement was thickly laden with dust, but that wasn't what Ian was looking at. The sunlight streamed in behind them and showed that the pristine dust had been marred by footsteps; a lot of foot steps. Some of the prints were plenty large, and most of the mercenaries were equally as large.

Still…Don screwed up his courage. "Charlie?"

There was a rustle of sound. A cat? Then—

"Don?"

Weak. Tremulous. Don didn't care; it was Charlie!

Somehow his brother had ended up in the rafters, large planks of plywood creating a storage area for boxes and mathematicians some ten feet up in the air. Don swiftly scanned the rest of the small garage, located a ladder, and wrestled it into place. "I'm coming up after you, buddy. You okay?"

"Yeah." The voice wobbled, and Don doubted that Charlie was truly 'okay'. Not the point. Once Don got his hands on his brother, he could rectify that matter. "Don…where's David? And Colby?"

"You're alone?" Really poor form, for David to leave his charge unguarded, but Don knew that his second in command would have a good reason.

"Yes." More tremors.

Don popped his head above the level of the rafters and spotted his brother. Charlie too was covered in dust, smudges across his nose and his hair matted with filth and sweat.

Charlie was the best damn sight that Don had seen in a long time.

He was also the most miserable. He could barely sit up with his back against the walls of the garage, and movement beyond the lifting of a finger was out of the question. Don crawled swiftly to him, careful to avoid banging his head on the rafters. "I got you, buddy. You're safe now."

"Yeah." Charlie was trying.

"Where's David?" Still one FBI agent unaccounted for.

Charlie stiffened, and coughed. "He's not with you?"

"Charlie, he was supposed to be with you."

The shakes got worse, and Charlie stilled them with an effort. "He…David was drawing them off." Cough. "Said that he couldn't let them get to me."

Damn. Another hero. Don really hoped that David Sinclair wasn't going to receive his accolades posthumously.

No time for that now. Don had his own hero to rescue here and now, one that shared some twenty five percent of his genes. He grabbed some rope that Ian tossed up, looping it under his brother's arms. "I'm going to let you down from here," he told Charlie. "You just hang on, and Ian and me'll have you out of here."

Charlie let his fingers clutch Don's sleeve for a long moment. "Thanks," he whispered, his voice hoarse. "I…"

"You just figure out that damn pass code and finish this thing," Don interrupted. "Best way to put those bastards where they belong." He finished tying a knot in the front of the mathematician's chest, tugging on it to make sure that it would hold.

Charlie wasn't helping. It was all his brother could do to hold up his head, and the eyelids were a lost cause. Don wrestled him to the edge of the planks on the rafters, easing the man's legs over the side and hanging onto the rope. "Ian?"

"Got him." Ian, the taller of the two, was able to grab Charlie's legs and keep him from falling onto the cold and dirty cement floor.

Don waited until he was sure that support from the rafters was no longer needed, then he tossed the end of the rope down and hustled down the ladder himself. He jumped down the last two rungs to dash to his brother. "Charlie?"

"The laptop," Charlie whispered.

Right. The damn laptop that David and Colby had taken with them for Charlie to work on. "Where is it?"

A wry smile. "Up there."

Don sighed, exchanged a glance with Ian before he leaned over to whisper back into Charlie's ear, "you always were a rotten little brother." That elicited a weak smile, even if the eyes were too tired to participate.

Don clambered back up the ladder to where they'd found Charlie and retrieved the laptop. It was as he remembered it before handing it to David and Colby, not that he could distinguish between this one and the thousands of other laptops that he'd seen. He tucked it under his arm and climbed back down the ladder, this time more slowly. _This up and down stuff is getting real old, and so are my knees…_

"Let's get you out of here," he offered, reaching out a hand to his brother.

Charlie took Don's hand but it took two tries and two FBI agents to get him back up on his single good leg. Don handed the laptop over to Ian; the sniper was significantly taller than the mathematician, and Don was better able to slide Charlie's arm over his shoulder for support.

He took one step—and stopped.

There was movement outside, someone approaching. More mercenaries? How many did BlackSeas have?

A hard choice to make: draw his gun and let Charlie slump to the cold floor, or let the mercenaries shoot them both. Well, maybe not such a hard decision. Don pulled out his gun, trying his best to make Charlie's descent a controlled slide instead of a graceless flop.

The door creaked open. Don steadied his grip on his handgun, well aware of Ian doing the same thing from another angle.

Slice of daylight, widening. Don aimed. "FBI! Freeze!"

"Finally!"

Don himself froze. "David?"

The door opened wider. David was standing in the afternoon sunlight.

Don had never seen David like this. David was always neat and clean, suit nicely pressed, wearing a tie as often as not.

That was not David's current presentation. The tie was missing in action, the white shirt would see plenty of bleach before it could once again claim the designation of 'white', and David himself looked as though he'd gone several rounds with a windmill. Cuts and bruises dotted his face, and he'd be sporting a shiner for the next week.

He also wore a grimly satisfied smile.

Ian blinked. "Sinclair?"

David lowered his own handgun. "There are," he announced, "two mercenaries several blocks away from here."

"They going anywhere?"

"Not until someone picks them up and carts them off to a holding cell." David hitched his pants up around his waist. "Anybody got a belt I can borrow?"


	20. Game Over

"I see you found him," David said to Don. "I knew you would eventually, if I couldn't get back to him. Colby?"

Don's face darkened. "Surgery."

David's own eyes grew grim. "He gonna…?"

"The docs are pretty hopeful," Don said, starting to pull out his cell phone. "I can check with—"

David grabbed Don's wrist, and even Ian raised his eyebrows at the agent's haste. "Don't."

"David? You know something that we don't?"

David indicated the mathematician on the floor of the garage, and bent to help Don pick him up. "Colby figured this one out. He realized that the laptop was equipped with a microchip. You know, for tracking."

"A little late," Charlie croaked, trying not to grimace, moving from horizontal to vertical.

Don slipped under his brother's shoulder. "Charlie?"

It was David that replied, shoring up Charlie's other side. "He's right," he said. "Colby and I started Charlie to working on that laptop," and he nodded at the machine in Ian's hands, "and then Colby figured out that the thing was microchipped. You know; in case it got stolen. Turning the thing on gave someone the potential to track it."

"I wanted to turn the tracker off," Charlie muttered, trying to help with the forward locomotion. It wasn't working well.

"It was a little late for that, Charlie," David told him. He glanced at Don, and then edited the next thing that wanted to come out of his mouth. David wanted to ask, _what next? How do we protect a man when the enemy has the same access to the same technology that we do?_ "Let's get you to a safe location, and cleaned up."

"And you," Charlie added faintly. "Those guys…"

"Charlie!" Don exclaimed as his brother's eyes rolled back up into his head. "Crap!" he swore, reaching around to keep the man from hitting the ground. "David, you get his legs. Let's get him back to the hospital."

"Where the mercenaries can get at him again?" Ian asked sourly. "How about a better plan?"

"You got one sitting in your back pocket, Edgerton?" Don started to retort, and then it hit him. He _knew_ what to do. "Let's get Charlie safe," he directed. "First things first. Then we're going _finish_ this thing."

* * *

Normally, Charlie liked to pace. His legs rarely kept up with his thoughts, but that didn't matter. It was the action that pumped blood to the brain to better support the lightning fast mental gymnastics that were speeding along inside.

Not today. This time Charlie sat in front of his laptop, fingers dancing on the keyboard but one leg propped up on a stray chair bolstered with pillows. He was working on decrypting the pass code of the late Professor Walter Husinger, and it was taking all of his attention. Even his leg didn't hurt. Or, it did and Charlie was far too occupied to notice.

Colby limped in, hand pressed to his side. Three days later the junior agent was still on medical leave, but that was unimportant to him. Being present for the final action of the case was far more pressing. "Hey, Charlie."

There might have been a stray hand gesture acknowledging Colby's arrival, but Colby wasn't about to swear to it. With a sigh and a grin, Colby settled himself onto another chair in the room to wait.

* * *

He might have been anyone, although his lack of a tan in sun-conscious Los Angeles marked him as a guest in the City of Angels. Not the physique, though. Even in a town known for surfer dudes and buff bods, he failed to stand out. The muscles underneath the carefully casual polo shirt and khakis were toned. The jacket seemed a bit heavy, even for the fall weather, but it did a yeoman's job in covering the shoulder holster that he wore equally as casually.

He parked his car at the curb, closing the door on the fast and sporty model that bore the logo of a local car rental. In this part of L.A., that too did not stand out. To look good, one had to look good in one's car, and this man looked good. He strode up the walk to the small bungalow style dwelling and knocked on the door.

Special Agent Don Eppes answered the door, opening it as little as possible and scanning the exterior surroundings with a faintly worried air.

The man pulled out his identification. "Bergstrom."

"Director." Don nodded in acceptance. "Come in."

Director Bergstrom entered the house, noting the comfortable furniture dotting the living area and the heavy curtains that prevented anyone from peeking in. He also saw the laptop on the table to one side. The screen was lit, lazy fractal figures going through their mathematical dance, but there was no mathematician sitting in front of the computer.

Bergstrom raised his eyebrows. "Professor Eppes?"

"Sleeping." David Sinclair came up off of the sofa to stand at casual attention.

"But he got the data off of the machine," Don clarified, indicating the laptop. "He finished a short while ago, then he crashed and burned. We stuck him in the bedroom down the hall while we set up for the files to be transferred onto a flash drive; Ian's with him now, just in case. You didn't see anything suspicious out there, did you?" Don asked worriedly. "I swear, those mercs have got more men and better intel than we do. They keep showing up at our supposedly safe location. Can't figure out how they're doing it. It's enough to give me an inferiority complex."

"There was no one outside, Eppes," Bergstrom said impatiently. "Give me the flash drive."

"Hang on a sec. The files should finish downloading onto the drive any minute—yes, it looks like it's done." Don fiddled with the laptop.

"Good. I'll take it back to Washington." Bergstrom held out his hand. "Your part in this mess is done, Agent Eppes, Agent Sinclair. I'll see that Washington properly recognizes your contribution to this case."

Don detached the small plastic key from the side of the laptop, and dropped it onto the director's palm. "I'll be glad to get that piece of technology off of our plate," he remarked. "It's a little too hot for my taste."

Bergstrom nodded. "Likewise, Agent Eppes. I have instructions to take it directly to the Pentagon, no stops in between." He glanced at his watch. "In fact, my flight leaves in just under two hours. I had best get moving." He stepped out, then hesitated. "I understand that Professor Eppes was injured during the recovery process. If he's sleeping here, I presume he is on the mend?"

There was absolutely no expression on Don's face except polite dismay. "He is. I'll give him your get well wishes."

"You do that, Special Agent Eppes. He is an asset to this country." Bergstrom headed for the door. "I'll let myself out. You keep an eye on him. He'll stay here until we can pass the word to the intelligence community that we have the plans? That trying to obtain the data would be worthless?"

"Absolutely," Don promised. "Wouldn't have it any other way. We've already arranged for other professors at CalSci to cover his classroom lectures."

"Very good. There will be commendations in everyone's files for this, gentlemen. Good work, and good day." Bergstrom stepped out onto the front doorstep and closed the door.

But not before he tossed something small and round and deadly behind him.

Bergstrom hurried away, just fast enough so that he was only knocked off of his feet by the concussion.

The sound of the grenade blended into the roar of Bergstrom's car as he sped off.

Sirens, summoned by terrified neighbors, alarmed in the distance.

* * *

"Don! Are you all right?" Charlie tried to get up from his chair, only to sink back down when his leg informed him in no uncertain terms that standing unaided was still out of the question. Colby, wiser, remained where he was although he too scanned his team mates with a worried eye.

Don rubbed wryly at the smudge on his cheek. "What, I didn't get all the soot off?"

"Did you…?" Details. Clearly Charlie wanted details.

Well, actually he seemed to want to know that his big brother, the one that he was finally getting to know, was truly all right. That the trap that he'd helped Don to set up had been sprung in the right direction, because some of the possibilities to go wrong were awfully dire.

"I did." Don was enjoying himself. It felt good to have his little brother, the one with all the accolades, looking up to him. He'd enjoyed it as a kid on the baseball diamond, and found that the sensation hadn't diminished now that they were adults.

The situation hadn't been difficult to see. As long as the details of The Weapon, as Don had come to think of it, were locked under Charlie's and Walter Husinger's pass codes, Charlie would never be safe, never get to go out in public where some highly recompensed mercenaries would be waiting to snatch him. The mercenaries had been ahead; they already had Husinger's pass code, the cipher that Dr. Husinger hadn't been able to give to the feds before his death. All the mercenaries needed was Charlie's pass code.

Obvious solution: get _both_ Charlie's and Husinger's pass codes to the feds before the mercenaries. The brains of the Pentagon would take the information and start work on it immediately as well as work on a way to defend against it. With weeks of a head start, the mercenaries would come in at a distant number two. No one would want to buy what they had.

That still left the problem of the rogue agent. The evidence against him was entirely too vague for a conviction of treason, and one hint that the net was closing in would send the man running. No one on Don's team wanted that, not after what Bergstrom had put them through. No, Bergstrom was going to be removed from his position and sooner rather than later.

So Charlie had helped Don and the others to set up a trap, using Bergstrom's own intelligence against him. Bergstrom had previously determined Charlie's whereabouts by the tracking chip in the laptop? Don would take the laptop to some place where they could draw Bergstrom in, turn the laptop on so that Bergstrom would once more track the signal.

Which was where Charlie came in. Charlie was manipulating the laptop—but from the safety of the Los Angeles FBI Headquarters, through the miracle of the internet. Sleeping off his injuries in the back room of the new safe house? Not this time. Don had been pleased to deliver that lie to Bergstrom.

Don cracked his knuckles. "Hooked him this time, Charlie. Drew him in, handed over what he thought were the goods, and then ducked."

"You're all right, though?" Charlie searched his brother's face for any evidence that the man was lying to him.

"A little shaken up, but otherwise undamaged," David assured him.

"You said that he'd try to shoot you!"

"Yeah, well, can't call 'em all correctly," Don said, shrugging. "Flak jackets worked pretty well against explosions, too. Never knew that a sofa could absorb so much of the blast. Never knew I could jump behind it so fast, either!"

"I did," David said, reminiscing. "The sofa, I mean. There was this time in Cairo…"

Don looked around. "Where's Ian? I'd have thought that he'd want to be for the finale. On this coast," he amended. "They're going to arrest Bergstrom when he arrives in Washington with the flash drive filled with fake data." He rubbed his hands together in anticipation. "Step off the plane, into the hands of the Transportation Authority people. Just so that there isn't any possibility that Bergstrom had someone else on the inside of the FBI to tip him off, you see," he explained to Charlie. Then he frowned. "Where's Ian?" he asked again. "Isn't he here?"

Colby looked up. "He wasn't with you?"

"No. What gave you that idea?"

"He received a phone call," Charlie said. "We thought it was from you. He headed out."

Don shook his head. "Not from me. Maybe there's another hot spot somewhere that needs him. Too bad," he remarked. "I would have liked to have had a chance to say good bye."

* * *

David put down the phone, hand waving to his team leader. "Don! There's been shooting at LAX."

"Sniper, randomly taking people out?" Don grabbed for his flak jacket that he'd removed not two hours ago.

"Not clear. Single shot, from out of nowhere. One fatality, and several thousand terrified travelers fleeing from the airport."

Charlie looked up. "You're going?" There was a world of emotion in his voice, too many feelings for Don to decipher and certainly not when circumstances called for the senior agent to dash out from his office in FBI Headquarters.

"Got to, buddy. You sit there," Don admonished Colby who had likewise started to rise. "You want that hole in your side to open up again? Besides, I need you with Charlie. Those mercs don't know yet that their operation is a bust."

Colby nodded, settling himself back down in his chair. "We'll be right here, the both of us." He grinned. "Maybe I'll even learn some math."

* * *

The excitement was over by the time Don and David got to LAX. Airport security was the most prevalent force in the area, somber uniforms dominating the scene.

The captain in charge was already eager to turn over the scene to the FBI. "Single victim," he told them. "Poor slob never knew what hit him. Got him in the back of the neck. Must have severed the spine or something, execution style, you know? Probably dead before he hit the floor." The captain frowned. "Going to be a hell of a mess to clean up, and the tourists will have a fit."

"Any ID?"

The captain stopped the two FBI agents at the edge of the scene. "Didn't they tell you? He's one of yours."

"Ours?" Don got a sinking feeling. This could get really messy…

"Yeah. We pulled out his ID. He had it in his pocket, in his wallet, so that he could get through Security. Guy by the name of Bergstrom." The captain tried to sound sympathetic. "You know him?"

* * *

"Execution style? Couldn't happen to a more deserving person." Ian perched restlessly on the edge of Don's desk.

"Not really execution style," David said, eying the sniper with an unreadable expression. "Execution style is from close up. This was done from a distance."

"Same result, though," Ian mused. "Single shot to the back of the neck. Pretty good shot, that far away and other people all around. Damn good shot. Don't know if I could have made it myself." He paused. "Maybe someone was sending a message to someone else."

"We'll be running the bullet against the databanks as soon as the ME digs it out of Bergstrom's corpse." Don too was watching the sniper. "Are we going to find a match, Ian?"

Ian shrugged his shoulders. "How should I know? Probably not. These high powered jobs these days don't leave much in the way of a signature." He changed the direction of the discussion. "How about the fake flash drive? You find it on him? That's our proof that he was dirty, remember."

"Gone," Don said. "We're going on the assumption that Bergstrom met his contact. We don't know if they've figured out that the data is fake, yet. It would have been pretty fast."

"They would have to have someone knowledgeable in at least physics," Charlie put in. "Mechanical engineering."

"Whole thing will get swept under the carpet," Ian predicted. "Dirty laundry; the agency's not going to want this to get out into the light of day. My guess is that Washington will call to tell you to close the case. They'll have some Internal Affairs types take it over."

"They can have it," Colby agreed. He grimaced. "I'm tired of getting shot at." He eyed Special Agent Ian Edgerton speculatively. "_Damn_ good shot."

"That's what I said, Granger."

Charlie was watching the interplay between agents. There was a subtext going on, something that he wasn't following. It could be the narcotics that he was still taking, or it could be…No. It couldn't. He simply wasn't awake enough to follow the discussion and besides, this wasn't his field of expertise. After all, it sounded as though Ian had…

No. Unthinkable. Things like that happened only in spy novels, not in real life.

"You look beat, buddy." Don came around his desk to Charlie. "C'mon. Let's get you home."

"Home?" Now Charlie was thoroughly bewildered. "But I thought you said…two weeks…the mercenaries still want the code…"

"That was before someone took care of Bergstrom," Don explained, trying to be kind. "Someone just sent a powerful message: game over. Everything all right now. You can go back to CalSci. You, too, Colby. You're staying at Dad's place for the next few days, while you recover."

"Thanks. I could use that." Colby eased a tight muscle.

"Cooking won't be as good. I'm swinging by to pick up my old man from the hospital on the way home."

"Always take out, Eppes," Ian warned, a twinkle in his eye.

"Good, because you're going to be going out to get it, Edgerton. Either that, or you're putting up with my cooking."

_That _Charlie understood. He fixed Ian with a firm eye. "Trust me on this, Ian; you're coming home with us to protect me from Don's cooking."

The End.


End file.
